In order to achieve a nuanced and expansive understanding of spatial refiguration and to further develop the concept of multiple spatialities, there is a pressing need to pluralize and decolonize socio-spatial research, and to diversify perspectives by engaging in discussions with a wider range of colleagues in the field. As an initiative put together by an interdisciplinary team of CRC PhDs and Postdocs, this digital lecture series is intended to provide a platform for such a dialogue and exchange with researchers from different disciplinary and geographical research contexts.
The CRC 1265 aims to develop an empirically grounded theory of contemporary social change as a processual, spatial “refiguration”. With the concept of multiple spatialities, the research center transfers the concern with temporal-historical trajectories, which is the subject of the discussion of multiple modernities, to space. It thereby aims to bring the plurality of processes of spatial refiguration into focus. Multiple spatialities reflect our interest in spatial differences, divergences, and conflicts in such processes, and at the same time maintains a focus on the contemporary relational interconnectedness of lifeworlds. Since these theoretical considerations aim to have a global scope in their engagement with spatial expressions of social change, they must be attentive to differences in spatial thinking that are shaped by cultural and social contexts. Additionally, they must attend to the need to critically redress the Eurocentric limits of much of our current spatial theories. Not to be taken simply as ‘case studies’, different social, political and cultural locations and contexts have also spawned different theories and concepts. A decentering of research perspectives and practices is moreover needed to understand the complexity of spatial ontologies, orders and actions that may challenge or represent alternatives to modernist spatial figures. In this lecture series, we therefore aim to engage with the plurality of debates around space – different perspectives, concepts, and approaches to spatial thinking and the study of socio-spatial change. We also invite participants to critically engage with the dominant institutional structures, norms, and practices within which spatial research has been conducted in various scientific disciplines.
