Simon Runkel | Universität Heidelberg (original) (raw)

Books by Simon Runkel

Wir leben in Klangwelten, die unser Erleben einer lebendigen Wirklichkeit prägen. Wir suchen nach... more Wir leben in Klangwelten, die unser Erleben einer lebendigen Wirklichkeit prägen. Wir suchen nach außeralltäglichen Klangerlebnissen in aufwändig inszenierten Spiel-Räumen. Diese Spiel-Räume sind Räume der erlebten Interaktion, es sind fremde Räume, in denen wir zu uns selbst finden wollen und die als Heterotopien Zerstreuung vom Gewöhnlichen versprechen. Die in diesem Buch vorgenommene phänomenologische Untersuchung beschreibt die Ästhetisierung des Lebens anhand der Klangräume der Erlebnisgesellschaft. Es ist eine Aufforderung zum kritischen Hinhören und ein Plädoyer für die Planungsrelevanz klanggeographischer Lebenswirklichkeiten.

The book is a phenomenological study of the sonorous dimension of ludic spaces. Drawing mainly on introspection, the study approaches various heterotopias like theme parks, stadia, protest marches, rock concerts and religious places through listening. The author explores a broad range of phenomenological literature on sound and space, including conceptual works on atmospheres.

Articles & Book Sections by Simon Runkel

The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding collectively shared political agency ... more The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding collectively shared political agency in public space. By using a phenomenological approach, it explores the spaces of protest movements by deploying Elias Canetti’s perspective on crowds and links this to an affectively embodied spatiality of protesting crowds, which is conceptually framed as atmosphere. This endeavour is substantiated with the differentiation between atmospheres and situations as in the neo-phenomenology of Hermann Schmitz on the one hand and the social theory of imitation by Gabriel Tarde on the other. The key argument of the paper is that the rhythmic appearance of imitative waves of sentiments and ideas within protest movements spatially manifests itself in an overarching atmosphere of protesting crowds. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the links between social movements, emotional crowd dynamics and the emergence of communal atmospheres of protest. It concludes with the argument that such atmospheres and techniques that facilitate them are of major importance for the understanding of the stability and sustainability of protest movements.

Kurzfassung. This short paper provides the initial provocation for a themed issue that emerges fr... more Kurzfassung. This short paper provides the initial provocation for a themed issue that emerges from a conference on the topic of geographies of social crises/crises of social geographies. The article calls for a (re)consideration of the " social question " in the 21st century. We call for social geographers to engage with the historical dynamics of places and milieus to understand novel class societies and the violence that underpins social inequalities. The article makes a case for an empirically saturated social geography. We believe this provides a useful programme which helps to understand current phenomena of political, social and economic crises.

Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipato... more Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipatory action needs the future to become ready-to-hand. Focusing on the logics and practices of anticipatory action the paper discusses the relations between time and space in the context of risk and uncertainty. Spatializations of simulation technologies, preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action aim to disclose and extrapolate the future. In general, infrastructures are technologies which aim to materialize expectations concerning the future. In the case of emergency management infrastructural measures enable and/or constrain practices by inheriting specific logics.

The concept of riskscapes (Müller-Mahn and Everts, 2013) poses to be a promising framework to grasp these issues. In our perspective, extrapolated riskscapes treat the future as an already interpreted and symbolically structured world. This involves not only looking at the temporality of riskscapes, but also dealing with geographies of inscribed futurity. Two case studies focusing on emergency management practices of firefighters will be deployed for illustration: the first observes the logics of preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action inscribed into materialities of infrastructures in the context of rail-bound hazmat transports; the second shows how computer simulations for crowded geographies facilitate decision-making and action for policing and crowd management.

Instead of treating future in riskscapes as neutral, we highlight the politically situated practices that co-evolve with these technologies and their spatializations. The article discusses the dimension of time within riskscapes to gain a better understanding of the temporalization of space as in simulations and the spatialization of time as in infrastructures of emergency management.

English: In the article, the German-speaking debate on Leibniz' monadology within the social geog... more English:
In the article, the German-speaking debate on Leibniz' monadology within the social geographical framework of hermeneutics and action theory is linked with current usage of actor-network-theories and assemblage-theories in geographic inquiry. The monadology of Leibniz is deployed and discussed in the light of its interpretation within the social geographic frameworks of the 1980s and 1990s in Germany. With reference to Gabriel Tarde, the article argues that geographical research gains new impulses through the application of a neo-monadological perspective on the social. The implications of such a perspective are discussed in terms of methodological and methodical challenges on the one hand, and in regard to emerging opportunities for conceptual and thematic orientation on the other.

German:
Im Beitrag wird die deutschsprachige Fachdebatte zur Monadologie nach Leibniz im Rahmen der hermeneutischen und handlungstheoretischen Entwürfe zur Sozialgeographie mit aktuellen theoretischen Ansätzen wie Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorien oder assemblage-Theorien in der Humangeographie verknüpft. Zum anderen wird die Monadenlehre nach Leibniz aufgearbeitet und ihre Diskussion innerhalb der Sozialgeographie der 1980er und 1990er Jahre dargestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird mit Rekurs auf Gabriel Tarde eine Neo-Monadologie skizziert und dargestellt inwieweit dies für eine Geographie des Sozialen neue Perspektiven bieten kann. Es werden ferner methodologische und methodische Aspekte einer monadologischen Sozialgeographie diskutiert. Abschließend wird gezeigt, inwiefern das Fach und aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven konzeptionell und inhaltlich von einer solchen Perspektive profitieren könnten.

The paper discusses the materialities of crowds in distinction to crowd semantics. It contributes... more The paper discusses the materialities of crowds in distinction to crowd semantics. It contributes to an understanding of the relation between atmospheres/ambiances and the spaces of protesting crowds. It will be argued that the relation has two sides. First, techno‐ambiental interventions represent a form of crowd engineering and manipulation. Second, affective atmospheres play an important role within the political spaces of the crowd and facilitate the emergence, diffusion, and stabilisation of protest movements. By drawing on historical and contemporary accounts of crowds, the phenomenologies of Canetti and Schmitz will be combined and meaningful implications for crowd‐related research will be addressed.

Band 88, Heft 3-4, 2014

In the wake of the “spatial turn”, the role of space has been emphasized in organization studies.... more In the wake of the “spatial turn”, the role of space has been emphasized in organization studies. The spatio-temporal constructions of temporary organizations such as project-based associations will be assessed in the framework of a case study on the safety management of large events. Making theses spaces safe for mass gatherings is a process involving various organizations for a short time-span. The spatial organization of these interorganizational efforts to produce safety is a required condition of the feasibility of events involving large crowds. Within this context it will be assessed whether Sloterdijks metaphor of “foam” is beneficial for describing the spatiality of interorganizational relations. Subsequently, the inter- organizational strategies of immunization, imitation and territorialization of competences will be addressed in this study.

Ko-Autoren sind Swen Zehetmair and Jürgen Pohl. In: Groneberg, C. & G. Rusch (2015) (Hrsg.): Sich... more Ko-Autoren sind Swen Zehetmair and Jürgen Pohl. In:
Groneberg, C. & G. Rusch (2015) (Hrsg.): Sicherheitskommunikation. Perspektiven aus Theorie und Praxis. (= Zivile Sicherheit. Schriften zum Fachdialog Sicherheitsforschung, Bd. 12). LIT, Berlin u.a. S. 323-348.

Religious movements tend to be global in their aspirations and theologies, but they are deeply em... more Religious movements tend to be global in their aspirations and
theologies, but they are deeply embedded in local and regional spatial formations. The spaces of religious practices go beyond the physical world, although they may be expressed, imagined and performed as topologies. In using the term “churchscapes,” our aim is to provide a theoretical framework for a cultural analysis of the Brethren movement in Germany and in particular the so-called “Closed” branch of the Brethren. We have analyzed the movement in terms of its historical geography and sociology, which is mutually constitutive to the theological imagination of the Brethren. Religious movements in general are mostly deterritorialized phenomena regarding their distribution and diffusion, even though they form specific passage points, hubs, travel practices and spatial communalizations. To understand these community formations we focus on Closed Brethren musical practices.

Geographische Zeitschrift 100 (4), 2012

The aim of the paper is to facilitate a theoretical approach of crowd management as research topi... more The aim of the paper is to facilitate a theoretical approach of crowd management as research topic in social geography and spatial planning. The planning and realization of mass events are challenging, especially in regard to safety and security issues. The branch of event safety is about to professionalize, although the topic of crowd management has not gained much interest in German academic discourses yet. Mass events need to be understood as interdisciplinary projects at the intersection between social psychology, spatial planning, and risk management. The paper develops a holistic notion of crowd management. On the basis of Canetti's phenomenology of masses a theoretical framework for the social geographical understanding of the social psychology of space is proposed and further developed.

Magdeburger Journal für Sicherheitsforschung 5 (1), 3. Jahrgang, S. 369-384, 2013

Die Entwicklung neuer Technologien soll nach politischen Vorgaben neue Handlungsspielräume für ei... more Die Entwicklung neuer Technologien soll nach politischen Vorgaben neue Handlungsspielräume für ein sicheres und freieres Leben der Bürger in Zukunft eröffnen. Technologie ist nicht neutral, denn soziale Praktiken verändern sich und nehmen großen Einfluss auf die zukünftige Organisation unseres Lebens. Sicherheitstechnologien - wie dem beispielhaft diskutierten Evakuierungsassistent - ist eine prognostizierende Funktionalität gemein, um potentielle Gefahren abzuwehren. Damit ist Sicherheitstechnologien die Erwartung zukünftiger Gefahren immanent. Auf Basis einer postphänomenologisch-ethnografischen Beschreibung wird der Prozess einer High-Tech-Entwicklung erfasst und kritisch beleuchtet. Dabei wird im Rückgriff auf Heideggers Technikphilosophie in der Lesart von Don Ihde die politisch-normalisierende als auch nützliche Dimension von technischem Handeln betrachtet. Neben der Analyse der Wirkmächtigkeit technischer Entwicklungen wird ebenso die Nutzung von Leitbildern und Präskriptionen in der Technikgenese kritisch betrachtet. Schließlich wird eine Begriffswendung von Sicherheit zu Fürsorge versucht, die sich letztlich mit einer zukünftigen Vision von technischem Handeln im Horizont der Hoffnung eines demokratischen, gemeinschaftlichen Zusammenlebens verbindet.

Leo Waibel – Zur Rezeption seiner Arbeiten in Brasilien, Afrika und Deutschland, 2013

CSS Working Papers No. 8, Marburg., 2008

More than a decade after the Dayton Peace Accords, the question remains whether peace in Bosnia a... more More than a decade after the Dayton Peace Accords, the question remains whether peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will sustain. Assuming that the economic prosperity plays a crucial role for a successful peacebuilding process, this Working Paper addresses the potential and the risks of economic development, focusing on three particular aspects: corruption, informal labor and the brain drain phenomenon.
Rob Scheid shows that corruption is an endemic problem concerning governance, civil society, and the economy in BiH. He outlines examples of the various forms corruption takes and discusses steps taken to combat this issue, arguing that corruption’s detraction from economic development prolongs the peacebuilding process. Julika Bake deals with the phenomenon of illicit labor, which is seen as one of the major obstacles to economic prosperity in BiH. She argues that besides macroeconomic recovery and labor policy, the links between local political elites and informal employers have to be taken into account to successfully create formal employment. Simon Runkel addresses the difficult labor situation of young people and the resulting emigration, particularly of the well educated. In his opinion, reforms in the fields of education as well as private investment are necessary to facilitate the return of emigrants and to benefit from the positive long-term effect of the so-called brain drain phenomenon.
All three sections of this Working Paper hold that the peacebuilding process would benefit to a great extent from the strengthening of formal economic relations, the weakening of links between the economic and political spheres, especially on a local level, as well as from the creation of job opportunities. Although economic prosperity and sustainable development often seem beneficial they do not appear to be a primary concern in peacebuilding. This paper shows that economic aspects are crucial to the question of whether peace will stay and last in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Talks by Simon Runkel

Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipato... more Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipatory action needs the future to become ready-to-hand. Focusing on the logics and practices of anticipatory action the talk discusses the relations between time and space in the context of risk and uncertainty. Spatializations of simulation technologies, preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action aim to disclose and extrapolate the future. Infrastructures are technologies which aim to materialize certain ideas and expectations towards the future. In the case of emergency management infrastructural measures enable and/or constrain practices by inheriting specific logics.
The concept of riskscapes poses to be a promising framework to grasp these issues. In our perspective, extrapolated riskscapes treat the future as already interpreted and symbolically structured world. This involves not only to look at the temporality of riskscapes but to deal with geographies of inscribed futurity. Two case studies will be deployed for illustration: the first observes the logics of preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action inscribed into materialities of infrastructures in the context of rail-bound hazmat transports; the second shows how computer simulations for crowded geographies facilitate decision-making and action for policing and crowd management.
Instead of treating future in riskscapes as neutral, we highlight the politically situated practices that co-evolve with these technologies and their spatializations. The talk discusses the dimension of time within riskscapes to gain a further understanding of the temporalization of space as in simulations and the spatialization of time as in infrastructures of emergency management.

Man sieht sie überall: Miley Cyrus hat eins, der Papst ebenso, Fremde in der U-Bahn und deine Kin... more Man sieht sie überall: Miley Cyrus hat eins, der Papst ebenso, Fremde in der U-Bahn und deine Kinder tragen sie in unterschiedlichen Farben. Wie kann es sein, dass sich die Loom-Bändchen so breitenwirksam durchsetzen? Wie kann man solche ‚Schulhof-Moden‘ verstehen und was macht diese ansteckend? Welche affektiven Geographien sind in die Freundschaftsbändchen eingewebt? Im Beitrag werden anhand der Ausbreitung dieser Kunststoffbänder die sozialtheoretischen Überlegungen zu Nachahmung und Ansteckung von Gabriel Tarde vorgestellt. Die Renaissance dieser Soziologie der Nachahmung erlangte vor allem durch die Lesart von Autoren wie Deleuze & Guattari (1992), Latour (2001) und Sloterdijk (2004) neue Aufmerksamkeit in den Sozialwissenschaften. Tardes monadologische Soziologie revitalisiert nicht nur eine mikrohistorische Diffusionsforschung mit der Idee von „Diffusion durch Transformation“ (Czarniawska 2009) und den damit entstehenden lokalen Unterschieden, sondern bietet ebenfalls die Möglichkeit das infinitesimale Ereignen von Gesellschaft zu beobachten. Handelt es sich bei der aktuellen „Tardomanie“ (Mucchielli 2000) ebenfalls ‚nur‘ um eine Modeerscheinung oder kann diese Sozialtheorie die (sozial-)geographische Forschung empirisch und konzeptionell informieren? Welche Antworten kann eine Beschäftigung mit aktualisierten Konzepten Tardes liefern? Im Beitrag werden die Grenzen und Chancen einer Geographie der Nachahmung konzeptionell erörtert.

Simulationen ermöglichen einen Blick in die Zukunft. An der Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft, Polit... more Simulationen ermöglichen einen Blick in die Zukunft. An der Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft, Politik und Ökonomie ist die medienästhetische Inszenierung der Zukunft eine wichtige Ressource. In der Humangeographie werden Simulationen zur Beschreibung, Erklärung und Prognose von sozialen Phänomenen in unterschiedlichen Anwendungskontexten eingesetzt (Benenson u. Torrens 2004; Koch u. Mandl 2013). Der Impulsvortrag widmet sich der Frage, ob eine kritische Simulationsforschung möglich ist. Dazu werden zunächst einige erkenntnistheoretische Aspekte des „synthetic reasoning“ (DeLanda 2011) dargestellt. Als mögliche Sphären einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Simulationen werden die Entwicklung und die Einsatzgebiete im Überblick dargestellt. Abschließend wird das Potential von Simulationen für den Entwurf alternativer Zukünfte dargestellt.

Wir leben in Klangwelten, die unser Erleben einer lebendigen Wirklichkeit prägen. Wir suchen nach... more Wir leben in Klangwelten, die unser Erleben einer lebendigen Wirklichkeit prägen. Wir suchen nach außeralltäglichen Klangerlebnissen in aufwändig inszenierten Spiel-Räumen. Diese Spiel-Räume sind Räume der erlebten Interaktion, es sind fremde Räume, in denen wir zu uns selbst finden wollen und die als Heterotopien Zerstreuung vom Gewöhnlichen versprechen. Die in diesem Buch vorgenommene phänomenologische Untersuchung beschreibt die Ästhetisierung des Lebens anhand der Klangräume der Erlebnisgesellschaft. Es ist eine Aufforderung zum kritischen Hinhören und ein Plädoyer für die Planungsrelevanz klanggeographischer Lebenswirklichkeiten.

The book is a phenomenological study of the sonorous dimension of ludic spaces. Drawing mainly on introspection, the study approaches various heterotopias like theme parks, stadia, protest marches, rock concerts and religious places through listening. The author explores a broad range of phenomenological literature on sound and space, including conceptual works on atmospheres.

The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding collectively shared political agency ... more The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding collectively shared political agency in public space. By using a phenomenological approach, it explores the spaces of protest movements by deploying Elias Canetti’s perspective on crowds and links this to an affectively embodied spatiality of protesting crowds, which is conceptually framed as atmosphere. This endeavour is substantiated with the differentiation between atmospheres and situations as in the neo-phenomenology of Hermann Schmitz on the one hand and the social theory of imitation by Gabriel Tarde on the other. The key argument of the paper is that the rhythmic appearance of imitative waves of sentiments and ideas within protest movements spatially manifests itself in an overarching atmosphere of protesting crowds. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the links between social movements, emotional crowd dynamics and the emergence of communal atmospheres of protest. It concludes with the argument that such atmospheres and techniques that facilitate them are of major importance for the understanding of the stability and sustainability of protest movements.

Kurzfassung. This short paper provides the initial provocation for a themed issue that emerges fr... more Kurzfassung. This short paper provides the initial provocation for a themed issue that emerges from a conference on the topic of geographies of social crises/crises of social geographies. The article calls for a (re)consideration of the " social question " in the 21st century. We call for social geographers to engage with the historical dynamics of places and milieus to understand novel class societies and the violence that underpins social inequalities. The article makes a case for an empirically saturated social geography. We believe this provides a useful programme which helps to understand current phenomena of political, social and economic crises.

Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipato... more Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipatory action needs the future to become ready-to-hand. Focusing on the logics and practices of anticipatory action the paper discusses the relations between time and space in the context of risk and uncertainty. Spatializations of simulation technologies, preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action aim to disclose and extrapolate the future. In general, infrastructures are technologies which aim to materialize expectations concerning the future. In the case of emergency management infrastructural measures enable and/or constrain practices by inheriting specific logics.

The concept of riskscapes (Müller-Mahn and Everts, 2013) poses to be a promising framework to grasp these issues. In our perspective, extrapolated riskscapes treat the future as an already interpreted and symbolically structured world. This involves not only looking at the temporality of riskscapes, but also dealing with geographies of inscribed futurity. Two case studies focusing on emergency management practices of firefighters will be deployed for illustration: the first observes the logics of preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action inscribed into materialities of infrastructures in the context of rail-bound hazmat transports; the second shows how computer simulations for crowded geographies facilitate decision-making and action for policing and crowd management.

Instead of treating future in riskscapes as neutral, we highlight the politically situated practices that co-evolve with these technologies and their spatializations. The article discusses the dimension of time within riskscapes to gain a better understanding of the temporalization of space as in simulations and the spatialization of time as in infrastructures of emergency management.

English: In the article, the German-speaking debate on Leibniz' monadology within the social geog... more English:
In the article, the German-speaking debate on Leibniz' monadology within the social geographical framework of hermeneutics and action theory is linked with current usage of actor-network-theories and assemblage-theories in geographic inquiry. The monadology of Leibniz is deployed and discussed in the light of its interpretation within the social geographic frameworks of the 1980s and 1990s in Germany. With reference to Gabriel Tarde, the article argues that geographical research gains new impulses through the application of a neo-monadological perspective on the social. The implications of such a perspective are discussed in terms of methodological and methodical challenges on the one hand, and in regard to emerging opportunities for conceptual and thematic orientation on the other.

German:
Im Beitrag wird die deutschsprachige Fachdebatte zur Monadologie nach Leibniz im Rahmen der hermeneutischen und handlungstheoretischen Entwürfe zur Sozialgeographie mit aktuellen theoretischen Ansätzen wie Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorien oder assemblage-Theorien in der Humangeographie verknüpft. Zum anderen wird die Monadenlehre nach Leibniz aufgearbeitet und ihre Diskussion innerhalb der Sozialgeographie der 1980er und 1990er Jahre dargestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird mit Rekurs auf Gabriel Tarde eine Neo-Monadologie skizziert und dargestellt inwieweit dies für eine Geographie des Sozialen neue Perspektiven bieten kann. Es werden ferner methodologische und methodische Aspekte einer monadologischen Sozialgeographie diskutiert. Abschließend wird gezeigt, inwiefern das Fach und aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven konzeptionell und inhaltlich von einer solchen Perspektive profitieren könnten.

The paper discusses the materialities of crowds in distinction to crowd semantics. It contributes... more The paper discusses the materialities of crowds in distinction to crowd semantics. It contributes to an understanding of the relation between atmospheres/ambiances and the spaces of protesting crowds. It will be argued that the relation has two sides. First, techno‐ambiental interventions represent a form of crowd engineering and manipulation. Second, affective atmospheres play an important role within the political spaces of the crowd and facilitate the emergence, diffusion, and stabilisation of protest movements. By drawing on historical and contemporary accounts of crowds, the phenomenologies of Canetti and Schmitz will be combined and meaningful implications for crowd‐related research will be addressed.

Band 88, Heft 3-4, 2014

In the wake of the “spatial turn”, the role of space has been emphasized in organization studies.... more In the wake of the “spatial turn”, the role of space has been emphasized in organization studies. The spatio-temporal constructions of temporary organizations such as project-based associations will be assessed in the framework of a case study on the safety management of large events. Making theses spaces safe for mass gatherings is a process involving various organizations for a short time-span. The spatial organization of these interorganizational efforts to produce safety is a required condition of the feasibility of events involving large crowds. Within this context it will be assessed whether Sloterdijks metaphor of “foam” is beneficial for describing the spatiality of interorganizational relations. Subsequently, the inter- organizational strategies of immunization, imitation and territorialization of competences will be addressed in this study.

Ko-Autoren sind Swen Zehetmair and Jürgen Pohl. In: Groneberg, C. & G. Rusch (2015) (Hrsg.): Sich... more Ko-Autoren sind Swen Zehetmair and Jürgen Pohl. In:
Groneberg, C. & G. Rusch (2015) (Hrsg.): Sicherheitskommunikation. Perspektiven aus Theorie und Praxis. (= Zivile Sicherheit. Schriften zum Fachdialog Sicherheitsforschung, Bd. 12). LIT, Berlin u.a. S. 323-348.

Religious movements tend to be global in their aspirations and theologies, but they are deeply em... more Religious movements tend to be global in their aspirations and
theologies, but they are deeply embedded in local and regional spatial formations. The spaces of religious practices go beyond the physical world, although they may be expressed, imagined and performed as topologies. In using the term “churchscapes,” our aim is to provide a theoretical framework for a cultural analysis of the Brethren movement in Germany and in particular the so-called “Closed” branch of the Brethren. We have analyzed the movement in terms of its historical geography and sociology, which is mutually constitutive to the theological imagination of the Brethren. Religious movements in general are mostly deterritorialized phenomena regarding their distribution and diffusion, even though they form specific passage points, hubs, travel practices and spatial communalizations. To understand these community formations we focus on Closed Brethren musical practices.

Geographische Zeitschrift 100 (4), 2012

The aim of the paper is to facilitate a theoretical approach of crowd management as research topi... more The aim of the paper is to facilitate a theoretical approach of crowd management as research topic in social geography and spatial planning. The planning and realization of mass events are challenging, especially in regard to safety and security issues. The branch of event safety is about to professionalize, although the topic of crowd management has not gained much interest in German academic discourses yet. Mass events need to be understood as interdisciplinary projects at the intersection between social psychology, spatial planning, and risk management. The paper develops a holistic notion of crowd management. On the basis of Canetti's phenomenology of masses a theoretical framework for the social geographical understanding of the social psychology of space is proposed and further developed.

Magdeburger Journal für Sicherheitsforschung 5 (1), 3. Jahrgang, S. 369-384, 2013

Die Entwicklung neuer Technologien soll nach politischen Vorgaben neue Handlungsspielräume für ei... more Die Entwicklung neuer Technologien soll nach politischen Vorgaben neue Handlungsspielräume für ein sicheres und freieres Leben der Bürger in Zukunft eröffnen. Technologie ist nicht neutral, denn soziale Praktiken verändern sich und nehmen großen Einfluss auf die zukünftige Organisation unseres Lebens. Sicherheitstechnologien - wie dem beispielhaft diskutierten Evakuierungsassistent - ist eine prognostizierende Funktionalität gemein, um potentielle Gefahren abzuwehren. Damit ist Sicherheitstechnologien die Erwartung zukünftiger Gefahren immanent. Auf Basis einer postphänomenologisch-ethnografischen Beschreibung wird der Prozess einer High-Tech-Entwicklung erfasst und kritisch beleuchtet. Dabei wird im Rückgriff auf Heideggers Technikphilosophie in der Lesart von Don Ihde die politisch-normalisierende als auch nützliche Dimension von technischem Handeln betrachtet. Neben der Analyse der Wirkmächtigkeit technischer Entwicklungen wird ebenso die Nutzung von Leitbildern und Präskriptionen in der Technikgenese kritisch betrachtet. Schließlich wird eine Begriffswendung von Sicherheit zu Fürsorge versucht, die sich letztlich mit einer zukünftigen Vision von technischem Handeln im Horizont der Hoffnung eines demokratischen, gemeinschaftlichen Zusammenlebens verbindet.

Leo Waibel – Zur Rezeption seiner Arbeiten in Brasilien, Afrika und Deutschland, 2013

CSS Working Papers No. 8, Marburg., 2008

More than a decade after the Dayton Peace Accords, the question remains whether peace in Bosnia a... more More than a decade after the Dayton Peace Accords, the question remains whether peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will sustain. Assuming that the economic prosperity plays a crucial role for a successful peacebuilding process, this Working Paper addresses the potential and the risks of economic development, focusing on three particular aspects: corruption, informal labor and the brain drain phenomenon.
Rob Scheid shows that corruption is an endemic problem concerning governance, civil society, and the economy in BiH. He outlines examples of the various forms corruption takes and discusses steps taken to combat this issue, arguing that corruption’s detraction from economic development prolongs the peacebuilding process. Julika Bake deals with the phenomenon of illicit labor, which is seen as one of the major obstacles to economic prosperity in BiH. She argues that besides macroeconomic recovery and labor policy, the links between local political elites and informal employers have to be taken into account to successfully create formal employment. Simon Runkel addresses the difficult labor situation of young people and the resulting emigration, particularly of the well educated. In his opinion, reforms in the fields of education as well as private investment are necessary to facilitate the return of emigrants and to benefit from the positive long-term effect of the so-called brain drain phenomenon.
All three sections of this Working Paper hold that the peacebuilding process would benefit to a great extent from the strengthening of formal economic relations, the weakening of links between the economic and political spheres, especially on a local level, as well as from the creation of job opportunities. Although economic prosperity and sustainable development often seem beneficial they do not appear to be a primary concern in peacebuilding. This paper shows that economic aspects are crucial to the question of whether peace will stay and last in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipato... more Anticipating the future is a key practice for the management of potential emergencies. Anticipatory action needs the future to become ready-to-hand. Focusing on the logics and practices of anticipatory action the talk discusses the relations between time and space in the context of risk and uncertainty. Spatializations of simulation technologies, preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action aim to disclose and extrapolate the future. Infrastructures are technologies which aim to materialize certain ideas and expectations towards the future. In the case of emergency management infrastructural measures enable and/or constrain practices by inheriting specific logics.
The concept of riskscapes poses to be a promising framework to grasp these issues. In our perspective, extrapolated riskscapes treat the future as already interpreted and symbolically structured world. This involves not only to look at the temporality of riskscapes but to deal with geographies of inscribed futurity. Two case studies will be deployed for illustration: the first observes the logics of preemptive emergency management and anticipatory action inscribed into materialities of infrastructures in the context of rail-bound hazmat transports; the second shows how computer simulations for crowded geographies facilitate decision-making and action for policing and crowd management.
Instead of treating future in riskscapes as neutral, we highlight the politically situated practices that co-evolve with these technologies and their spatializations. The talk discusses the dimension of time within riskscapes to gain a further understanding of the temporalization of space as in simulations and the spatialization of time as in infrastructures of emergency management.

Man sieht sie überall: Miley Cyrus hat eins, der Papst ebenso, Fremde in der U-Bahn und deine Kin... more Man sieht sie überall: Miley Cyrus hat eins, der Papst ebenso, Fremde in der U-Bahn und deine Kinder tragen sie in unterschiedlichen Farben. Wie kann es sein, dass sich die Loom-Bändchen so breitenwirksam durchsetzen? Wie kann man solche ‚Schulhof-Moden‘ verstehen und was macht diese ansteckend? Welche affektiven Geographien sind in die Freundschaftsbändchen eingewebt? Im Beitrag werden anhand der Ausbreitung dieser Kunststoffbänder die sozialtheoretischen Überlegungen zu Nachahmung und Ansteckung von Gabriel Tarde vorgestellt. Die Renaissance dieser Soziologie der Nachahmung erlangte vor allem durch die Lesart von Autoren wie Deleuze & Guattari (1992), Latour (2001) und Sloterdijk (2004) neue Aufmerksamkeit in den Sozialwissenschaften. Tardes monadologische Soziologie revitalisiert nicht nur eine mikrohistorische Diffusionsforschung mit der Idee von „Diffusion durch Transformation“ (Czarniawska 2009) und den damit entstehenden lokalen Unterschieden, sondern bietet ebenfalls die Möglichkeit das infinitesimale Ereignen von Gesellschaft zu beobachten. Handelt es sich bei der aktuellen „Tardomanie“ (Mucchielli 2000) ebenfalls ‚nur‘ um eine Modeerscheinung oder kann diese Sozialtheorie die (sozial-)geographische Forschung empirisch und konzeptionell informieren? Welche Antworten kann eine Beschäftigung mit aktualisierten Konzepten Tardes liefern? Im Beitrag werden die Grenzen und Chancen einer Geographie der Nachahmung konzeptionell erörtert.

Simulationen ermöglichen einen Blick in die Zukunft. An der Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft, Polit... more Simulationen ermöglichen einen Blick in die Zukunft. An der Schnittstelle von Wissenschaft, Politik und Ökonomie ist die medienästhetische Inszenierung der Zukunft eine wichtige Ressource. In der Humangeographie werden Simulationen zur Beschreibung, Erklärung und Prognose von sozialen Phänomenen in unterschiedlichen Anwendungskontexten eingesetzt (Benenson u. Torrens 2004; Koch u. Mandl 2013). Der Impulsvortrag widmet sich der Frage, ob eine kritische Simulationsforschung möglich ist. Dazu werden zunächst einige erkenntnistheoretische Aspekte des „synthetic reasoning“ (DeLanda 2011) dargestellt. Als mögliche Sphären einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Simulationen werden die Entwicklung und die Einsatzgebiete im Überblick dargestellt. Abschließend wird das Potential von Simulationen für den Entwurf alternativer Zukünfte dargestellt.

Geographica Helvetica, 2018

Kurzfassung. This article serves as introduction for a themed issue on Peter Sloterdijk's enormou... more Kurzfassung. This article serves as introduction for a themed issue on Peter Sloterdijk's enormous philosophy of space. It invites scholars from various disciplines to critically engage with Sloterdijk's thought and discusses briefly the contributions made in this special issue. The paper gives some orientation on the anthropological and social philosophy Sloterdijk deploys within his oeuvre, and illuminates the various fields of social and cultural research his ideas have informed so far. The editorial identifies four possible fields of interest within human geography that could gain by engaging with Sloterdijk's thought, namely urban and architectural theory, new technologies, political geographies and critical social geography. The article also discusses the necessity of a critical distance to the philosophical premises on which Sloterdijk grounds his philosophy as well as his role as notorious commentator on political issues in Germany.

Anarchafeministische Perspektiven einer Sozialgeographie mit Emma Goldman