Spatial Theory Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The article analyzes the development of spatial sensitivities in the Israeli historiography of the Mizrahi Jews. The goal of the article is to examine and illustrate the impact of this sensitivity among different generations of historians who focus on distinct subjects and geographical regions.
The article first examines the contribution made by scholars from the 1940s through the 1960s along the spatial dimension. It then considers studies written by scholars born from the 1970s onward while focusing on the contribution of this sensitivity to the study of the role of Mizrahi Jews in pan-Jewish cultural, ideological, and social movements, namely the Kabbalah, the Haskalah, and Hebrew culture. I find that the growing sensitivity to spatial issues is associated with the “long history” (longue durée) approach to the study of Mizrahi Jews in Israel. Thus, for example, several of the scholars discussed in the article helped to eliminate the artificial boundary between the pre- and post-1948 periods. Sensitivity to the spatial dimension also helps to link the discussion of the Mizrahim in Israel to the “long history” of solidarity between Jews from the “East” and the “West.”

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- Israel Studies, Historiography, Spatial Theory, Sephardi/Mizrahi Studies

This paper will explore two examples from the design, structure and implementation of the ‘E-learning and Digital Cultures’ Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the University of Edinburgh in partnership with Coursera. This five week long course (known as the EDCMOOC) was delivered twice in 2013, and is considered an atypical MOOC in its utilisation of both the Coursera platform and a range of social media and open access materials. The combination of distributed and aggregated structure will be highlighted, examining the arrangement of course material on the Coursera platform and student responses in social media. This paper will suggest that a dominant instrumentalist view of technology limits considerations of these systems to merely enabling or inhibiting educational aims. The subsequent discussion will suggest that sociomaterial theory offers a valuable framework for considering how educational spaces are produced through relational practices between humans and non-humans. An analysis of You Tube and a bespoke blog aggregator will show how the algorithmic properties of these systems perform functions that cannot be reduced to the intentionality of either the teachers using these systems, or the authors who create the software, thus constituting a complex sociomaterial educational enactment.

- by Jeremy Knox
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- Educational Technology, E-learning, Spatial Theory, Digital Edition

Este libro plantea una síntesis de uno de los temas metodológicos que más desarrollo ha conocido en la Arqueología de los últimos treinta años. Desde que en la década de los 1960 la disciplina arqueológica superase definitivamente el esquema que mantenía al artefacto como objetivo epistemológico principal y a la excavación como único vehículo capaz de alcanzarlo, las teorías, métodos y técnicas de reconocimiento y análisis territorial se han expandido de una forma acelerada. Ello ha creado un ámbito de estudio y práctica profesional de la Arqueología, del cual, a pesar de su pujanza y de la diversidad y complejidad de procedimientos técnicos y nociones teóricas que aparecen implicadas, todavía no se había realizado una verdadera síntesis en lengua española. Este manual ofrece a los jóvenes estudiantes y practicantes de la Arqueología actual un tratamiento riguroso, pero accesible, de los principios aplicados tanto en la detección y caracterización de sitios arqueológicos en el territorio actual (prospección de superficie, prospección geofísica, empleo de imágenes captadas por plataformas aéreas y espaciales, cartografía arqueológica), como en la interpretación de las pautas de aprovechamiento, organización y percepción del territorio que se dieron entre las sociedades del Pasado.

- by Leonardo García Sanjuán
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- Geography, Human Geography, Cultural Geography, Historical Geography

Few individuals have made a more seminal contribution to contemporary planning theory than Andreas Faludi. His latest book, The Poverty of Territorialism: A neo-medieval view of Europe and European Planning, provides a synthesis of his groundbreaking empirical and theoretical work on the politics of planning and territorial governance in the European Union. However, the book is also considerably more than 'just' a synthesis. As befits one of the greatest visionary and creative minds of planning theory, it also constitutes a deeply personal reflection that, throughout its pages, develops into no less than a testament of sorts, and a passionate declaration of allegiance to the cultural ideals of liberal cosmopolitanism. With the stylistic grace of the seasoned, self-confident author the text seamlessly flows between essayistically styled personal reflections and quite heavy theoretical excursions. The narrative skillfully situates the practices of European spatial planning within a wider political and cultural context in a way that very few have the courage, let alone competence, to do. To achieve this, the book draws on diverse theoretical resources previously scantly employed in planning theory debates, including but not limited to scholarship in the subject areas of the philosophy of international and constitutional law and historical studies of citizenship, statehood and territoriality on the European continent. Writ short, the main argument of the book can be summarized thus: the European territorial state has outlived its time, and is therefore consequently withering away-and a good riddance it is, so planners should do all they can to further facilitate its demise. But what is a realistic alternative? With world government being a distant possibility, to say the least, Faludi sets before himself the no-less ambitious task of reasoning around how spatial planning can potentially contribute to 're-invent democracy for a networked world' (Faludi, 2018), arguing that 'we should no longer think of territories as the privileged frames for organizing our lives' (p. xiii), what Faludi in the book refers to as the ideology of 'territorialism'. The most realistic and appealing alternative in the eyes of

- by Andrea Mubi Brighenti
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- Territory (Political Theory), Spatial Theory

Recent discussions of human categories have suffered from an over emphasis on intention and language, and have not paid enough attention to the role of material conditions, and, specifically, of social space in the construction of human categories. The relationship between human categories and social spaces is vital, especially with the categories of class, race, and gender. This paper argues that social space is not merely the consequent of the division of the world into social categories; it is constitutive of social categories. To put it more bluntly, if who we are is bound up with place, then not only do we inhabit a divided America; divided America inhabits us. The second, and equally dramatic, conclusion is that attempts to transform social categories must involve the transformation of social space. When we sort people by categories, we do so spatially: with race come racialized spaces. And because our place comes to inhabit us, when we divide spatially we cannot help but to inscribe and produce categories and identities associated with our spatial divisions: with racialized spaces come race. Recognition of this dialectic is a direct challenge to the one-way considerations of social identity and social space that occurs in much urban sociology and history. Moreover, it demonstrates that there is an internal contradiction in policies—often based in urban sociology and history—that assume that integration can be accomplished along with the conservation of ethnic and racial identity.

- by Ronald Sundstrom
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- Political Theory, Critical Race Theory, Philosophy Of Race, Spatial Theory

The nexus between migration dynamics and environmental change has drawn the attention of many researchers in the recent past. While the majority of studies focus on the impact of the environment on migration decisions, less emphasis has been placed on the feedback effect of migration on the environment in rural sending areas. This article provides a critical review of this relationship by focusing on the rich literature on rural-urban migration of smallholder households in Kenya and its effects on rural environments. The article argues that there are distinct relations between migration, agricultural change and the environment. These are mediated in varying degrees by flows of remittances, loss of labor, socio-economic stratification, gender dynamics and cultural factors. Overly generalizing assumptions about these relations, however, fail to grasp their complexity. We propose employing a translocal perspective to enrich future analysis and enhance the understanding of migration-environmental interactions.

- by Clemens Greiner and +1
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- Human Geography, Rural-to-urban Migration, Community Development, Social and Cultural Anthropology

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg and +1
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Critical Theory, Critical Theory

On the 6th of December 1992 during a political rally of two hundred thousand participants in the town of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India, Hindu nationalist militants demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th Century mosque. The event shocked... more

- by Arinjoy Sen
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- Semiotics, Religion, Archaeology, Architecture
- by Nikolaos Zahariadis
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

En el presente artículo se reflexiona en torno a la imagen en movimiento y sus capacidades para pensar la configuración del paisaje y la infraestructura. Específicamente se interroga por la participación de dos documentales emitidos por la televisión pública en el marco de la "franja cultural" de la dictadura cívico militar en la construcción de la Carretera Austral en la Patagonia chilena. Desde la perspectiva del "retorno material" en los estudios acerca de imágenes se propone que estos documentales sean comprendidos más como un material que participa en la construcción del camino austral y su entorno que un medio para la representación de dicho proceso. En este sentido, se postula que su relevancia se explica, de un lado, por la importancia que tuvo el medio televisivo en la política comunicacional del régimen y, del otro, por la capacidad de producir "paisajes vivientes" que tiene, en particular, la imagen en movimiento.

- by Santiago Urrutia Reveco
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- Dictatorships, Spatial Theory, Cinema Studies, Patagonia
- by Elias Zimmermann
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- German Literature, Literature, Spatial Theory, Architecture and Public Spaces

This paper explores the relationship of space and identity in the novel The House on Mango Street, written by a prominent Chicana writer San-dra Cisneros. Based on spatial theories and ethnic studies, the paper demonstrates how specific spatial characteristics interact and translate into the main character's identity traits. The spatial narrowness of homes and the isolation of Mango Street reflect a sense of social confinement, isolation, and subjuga-tion of Latino people in the U.S., predominantly Latino girls and women. As a minority people, they occupy the space on the social periphery where Latino and Anglo cultures meet. The spatial contact of Latino and Anglo-American culture generates de-territorialized, diasporic, and hybrid identities which are further compromised by gender issues in the Chicana case. In this setting, the main character Esperanza strives towards identity reconstruction which strongly relies on spatial and mental repositioning.

- by Nina Raem
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- Space and Time (Philosophy), Spatial Theory, Space and time, Spatial Concepts

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

This article brings spatial theory, diasporic culture, and media studies together in a cross-platform reading of Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon's work. Addressing the underexamined spatial consciousness of diaspora through an engagement with both print and electronic sources, it argues that Hemon's novels and websites render diasporic space in terms of " time-geography, " which represents places as loci for multiple histories of migration. Diasporic time-geography produces several perspectives (local, global, national, diasporic) on shared space, which are further compounded when Hemon's novels Nowhere Man (2002) and The Lazarus Project (2008) are read comparatively with their websites. I argue that Hemon's diversiform approach to space assumes coherence when read as a critique of nationalist spatial models. In particular, his use of text, image, and interactive web design to represent the spaces of cities such as Chicago, Sarajevo, Lviv, and others contests the spatial abstraction of the nation-state as described by Henri Lefebvre. Against this abstraction, Hemon's work understands space as a concrete social production inflected by past, present, and future population movements.

- by Nathan Jung
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- Media Studies, Diaspora Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Spatial Theory

Can heterotopia help us make sense of globalisation? Against simplistic visions that the world is becoming one, Heterotopia and Globalisation in the Twenty-First Century shows how contemporary globalising processes are driven by heterotopian tension and complexities. This volume will be of interest to scholars across disciplines who are engaged with questions of spatial difference, globalising processes, and the ways they are imagined and represented.

- by Simon Ferdinand
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- Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Globalization, Heterotopia

This chapter introduces Boundary Line Type (BLT) mapping, a vector GIS based cross-culturally and diachronically comparative method, used for mapping the socio-spatial significance of urban built environments. This new research method is related to other methods currently used to study contemporary as well as historical urban built environments such as urban morphology, space syntax, and GIS based approaches. BLT mapping uses GIS technology in order to apply an ontology of formal boundary conceptualisations expressing the constitutive differences among the materially constructed subdivisions which shape built environments and are inhabited by urban society. This ontology resulted from a firm socio-spatial theoretical grounding (Vis in Sp Flows: Int J Urb ExtraUrb Stud 2(4): 15–29, 2013a; Vis 2013b; Vis in J Borderland Stud, forthcoming) and is here operationalised on the basis of contemporary, historical, historically reconstructed, and archaeological ground-level city plans of the historic city of Winchester (UK) and Chunchucmil (Classic Maya, Mexico). The research processes of data preparation and the analytical mapping of BLTs by identifying them in empirical data contexts are presented. This alerts the prospective user to the challenges and practical measures involved in using spatial datasets of different origin. The interpretive opportunities of the resultant formal redescription of the urban landscape and the potential of the BLT data structure for both advanced spatial analysis and visualisation is explained. Facilitating this interpretive and analytical mapping practice is expected to stimulate future research to systematically explore societyspace relations as manifest and developing in cities over time and in socioculturally contrasting urban traditions. Devising and conducting this methodology advances the qualitative GIS research agenda for the spatial humanities and social sciences by marrying theoretically informed ideational concepts to quantifiable empirical units of information.

- by Benjamin Vis
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- Cultural History, Social Theory, Geography, Human Geography
- by Frank Meier
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

The entry begins with a definition of geography and with a description of what the discipline shares with the other social sciences and what makes it distinctive among them. Terminological clarifications are provided with regard to the relationship between human geography and physical geography, and between human geography and urban geography. After a brief history and overview of human geography’s engagement with social theory, the entry offers a discussion of the politicization of contemporary human geography and of how this phenomenon is reflected in theory building and concept development.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0464

- by Dragos Simandan
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- Critical Theory, Discourse Analysis, Landscape Ecology, Sociology

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship

This paper provides a framework for understanding the phenomenon of the discursive-material production of space, and also, for considering how unknowns may be organised. Language is instrumental to the production of place but has been overshadowed by investigations of material transformations. This is partly being redressed by the ‘linguistic turn’ in urban policy analysis over recent decades which recognise the performative aspects of language. However, the methodological ‘gap’ between discursivities and materialities remains as too often analysis of urban policy discourse has taken an aspatial analytic approach. Representations of space cannot be divorced from spatial practices and vice versa. Based on my premise that many visions, plans and strategies never materialise, and even some that do materialise have little bearing on what is produced, a mixed-method approach is required that considers the recursive interactions between spatial practices and representations of space. Grounded in the theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault, which conceptualis space as a social process and broaden discourse to embrace spatial practice respectively, I devise a conceptual and operational analytics which I refer to as interpretive-spatial analysis with the goal of helping to bridge the problematic ontological, epistemological and methodological divide between discursivities and materialities.

- by Lee Pugalis
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- Social Theory, Space and Place, Social Production of Space, Spatial Theory

The author aims at presenting examples of literary descriptions of Odra flooding (especially in the context of the most recent in 1997 and 2010) and the river regions in the perspective of aquacriticism. This approach belongs to a wider concept of ecocriticism which perceives the river as a key part of environment. The question being posed is what kind of influence can be traced in literary texts representing floods and how does literature influence perception of aquatic catastrophes such as floods. Since flood belongs to the catastrophe discourse, it blurs anthropocentric knowledge on rivers and indicates aquacentric modes of recognition. The ecoparadigmatic role of Odra is indicated by Silesian authors (in the collection Wie die Oder rauscht) and writers biographically connected with the river (Tokarczuk). The environmental function of the river can be better acknowledged through literary fiction that “gives voice to the river”.

- by Anna Barcz
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- Cultural Geography, Material Culture Studies, Culture, Culture Studies
- by Alyse Tunnell
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- Art History, Self and Identity, Queer Theory, Public Art

Through surveying Paul Rudolph’s idea of the ‘psychology of space,’ within the framework of architectural/spatial psychology theory, and three of his built works, this paper aims to evaluate the role of spatial psychology within... more

- by Daniel Ledford
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- Modern Architecture, Spatial Theory, PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE, Paul Rudolph

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Anssi Paasi
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- Cultural Studies, Human Geography, Cultural Geography, Regional Geography

Nowadays revitalization is often defined as a comprehensive effort including revalorization, restoration, reconstruction, modernization and actions aimed at the revival of a building, a district or a town devastated in different aspects, also the economic and social ones. The social aspect is among the most significant ones. In other words, there is no complete revitalization without solving social problems. The presented study discusses problems related to the broadly approached revitalization projects and their main directions of development, based on the example of Polish revitalization programmes of territorial self-governmental units. The first part of the paper presents the definitional aspects of revitalization taking into account social, economic, environmental, spatial, functional, cultural and technical dimensions. Moreover, the definition, structure and purpose of a revitalization programme was characterized. Next the primary objectives and current developmental directions of revitalization in Poland were discussed based on the selected applicable revitalization programmes. Today the main directions of revitalization processes in Poland cover: the reduction of poverty and social exclusion, supporting local business, cleaner environment activities, sustainable spatial and functional development, supporting technical infrastructures, promoting culture-based socioeconomic development.

- by Andrzej Raszkowski
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- Management, Marketing, Economic History, Urban Geography

Cite this article: Raszkowski, A., Bartniczak, B. Towards Sustainable Regional Development: Economy, Society, Environment, Good Governance Based on the Example of Polish Regions. Transformations in Business & Economics, 2018, Vol. 17, No 2 (44), pp.225-245.The presented study discusses problems referring to the concept of sustainable development at regional level, based on the example of Polish regions in the period 2005-2011. The first part presents theoretical aspects of sustainable regional development, raises the problems of primary phenomena hindering such development, sustainable development definitions, the role of creativity, the importance of NGOs, good governance of regional space. The next part of the article provides the characteristics of sustainable development indicators selected for the analysis in accordance with the approach adopted by the Central Statistical Office in Poland towards measuring the level of sustainable regional development. The synthetic measure of development (SMD) represents the applied research method, which offered the basis for constructing the ranking and identifying the position of particular Polish regions. The research results remain the core of the study since they illustrate the indicator values in the years under analysis. Within the framework of the final remarks and conclusions it was emphasized that in none of the studied regions, in terms of implementing sustainable development standards, the situation can be assessed as favourable or very favourable and the reasons for such state of the matter were provided. In spite of the relatively unfavourable results, a gradual improvement of the situation was observed over the years. It was pointed out that one of the fundamental barriers to the implementation of sustainable development standards is the absence of awareness and understanding of the discussed development concept.

- by Andrzej Raszkowski
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- Business, Management, Marketing, Business Administration

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Anssi Paasi
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- Cultural Studies, Human Geography, Cultural Geography, Regional Geography
- by David Seamon
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- Complex Systems Science, Environmental Psychology, Space and Place, Ecopsychology

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea of the topological city, both by sharing some observations about the use of topology in critical human geography today and also by demonstrating how different modes of topological analyses of the city may work. This paper suggests that while topology is not new to the social sciences in general or geography in particular, an uptick in interest in topology in the past decade is likely due to its role in the
work of Deleuze and Agamben. Topology, I suggest, can help geographers think in creative ways about spatial ontology, thereby offering some insights into the relationship between the subject
and the city. I build this argument by discussing the topological workings of three cinematic cities: The Adjustment Bureau (2011), Midnight in Paris (2011), and Inception (2010). [Key words:
topology, film, Lacan, subject, spatial theory.]

- by Anna J Secor
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- Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Lacanian theory, Psychoanalytic Geography

The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space provides a comprehensive critical overview of the latest advancements in the arena of spatial literary studies. Its primary questions move along the avenues opened up for literary criticism by the ‘spatial turn’ in cultural studies and the humanities in general. The investigations illuminate key concerns regarding the reciprocal relationships between spatiality and the human senses, their production of spatial and social relations, as well as an interpretation of space as a fluid dimension constantly in a state of becoming. The contributions present thoroughgoing analyses of a wide array of literary texts from diverse historical and geographical settings, and frequently evidence the profound impact that recent phenomenological and New Materialist bents have exerted on literary study. Expansive in scope and content, yet incisive and approachable, the volume should find both novices and experts, from the full range of disciplines that it engages with, among its reading public.

This essay discusses some key ideas and debates about urban studies in Brazil, considered histor-iographically, from the mid-1900s to the present. It presents the main components and particula-rities of what emerges as the Brazilian matrix of urban studies, interrogating the most influential work in the field with the country's own experiences of industrialisation and urbanisation. It discusses some key urban debates of the 21st century, namely new planning models associated with globalisation, global mega-events, public-private partnerships, inner-city gentrification, housing and city financialisation, rising forms of urban warfare and social control in slums (favelas), and new activisms and urban insurgencies. Through this analysis, we point to contradictions and tensions in relation to European and North American urban theory, calling for the need to formulate new categories and hypotheses to better understand the unequal and extreme processes resulting from violent expansion of capitalist relations over the entire planet, and comment on the new practices and forms of social mobilisation emerging from turbulent contexts.

- by Mariana Fix
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- Latin American Studies, Urban Studies, Spatial Theory, Global South

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

In this paper I provide a critical examination of Marc Augé’s spatial imagination, from his anthropological studies of African village life in the 1970s to his more recent studies of everyday spatial practices in the contemporary West. Augé’s spatial imagination is apparent throughout his ethnographic writings, but I suggest that his most widely acclaimed book, Non-Lieux/Non-Places, is all-too-frequently read as a theoretical articulation of the changing nature of space in the contemporary West, rather than as a semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical ethnology resulting from one man’s encounters and wanderings in the spaces of contemporary France. I trace parallels between Augé’s writings on non-places and those of a number of other Anglophone and Francophone scholars since the early 1960s, before focusing attention on writings on theories of space and place, and the geographies and histories of globalisation, consumption and mobility, which have led commentators to draw very different conclusions about the sociality and spatiality of late twentieth and early twenty-first century life.