Panel Discussion: After the Local – After the Global?
The concluding panel will bring the results of the symposium back to a conceptual discussion on how to imagine and theorize space in the Anthropocene, as well as on the practical and political consequences of the refiguration of space in the Anthropocene. Some key questions will include: How can we conceptualize spatial figures in the Anthropocene? What does this mean for the modernist spatial figures of territory, network, route, and place? How can we put into practice a new way of thinking about space? What might architecture and planning look like in the Anthropocene? How might social and ecological processes be linked in a way that has a positive impact on the planet and its human and more-than-human inhabitants?
The concluding panel will bring the results of the symposium back to a conceptual discussion on how to imagine and theorize space in the Anthropocene, as well as on the practical and political consequences of the refiguration of space in the Anthropocene. Some key questions will include: How can we conceptualize spatial figures in the Anthropocene? What does this mean for the modernist spatial figures of territory, network, route, and place? How can we put into practice a new way of thinking about space? What might architecture and planning look like in the Anthropocene? How might social and ecological processes be linked in a way that has a positive impact on the planet and its human and more-than-human inhabitants?
Christopher Kelty is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. His ethnographic and historical work explores the intersection of science, technology and social/political theory. He is the author of Two Bits (Duke University Press, 2008) and The Participant (University of Chicago Press, 2019) as well as articles on freedom, responsibility, and participation in science and engineering. His current work is The Labyrinth Project (https://www.labyrinth.garden/), a multi-discipline collaborative research inquiry into conflict and controversy in urban ecologies in Los Angeles, California based in fieldwork with pest-control professionals, wildlife managers, biologists, and veterinarians.
Martina Löw is Professor of Sociology at the TU Berlin. Her areas of specialization and research are sociological theory, urban sociology, space theory and cultural sociology. She has held visiting professorships and fellowships at universities in Gothenburg (Sweden), Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), St. Gallen (Switzerland), Paris (France) and New York (USA). From 2011 to 2013, she was president of the German Sociological Association. Currently she heads the Collaborative Research Center “Re-Figuration of Spaces” (CRC 1265).
Philipp Misselwitz (Prof. Dr.) is an architect and urban researcher. Since 2013, he holds the Chair of International Urbanism and Design (Habitat Unit) at the Technische Universität Berlin. His research focuses on the impact of planetary, social and ecological crises on architecture, urban development and urban-rural relations. Since 2017, he is Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Since September 2021, he is Executive Director of Bauhaus der Erde, which develops new systemic approaches for a climate-positive, circular and equitable built environment.