Theoretical and methodological framework

This scheme illustrates how the TPSN framework interacts with the Research Clusters,
(June 2019).

The GHL addresses the plurality and complexity of spaces, transfers and interactions by applying a multidimensional perspective on spatiality to overcome methodological territorialism, place-centrism, scale-centrism and network-centrism (Wenzlhuemer 2010; Allen and Dinnen 2017). As Jessop, Brenner and Jones (2008) highlight, the key dimensions of socio-spatial relations are territories, places, scales and networks which are mutually constitutive and relationally intertwined (TPSN framework). Each of the four socio-spatial relations can be used as a structuring principle, either in itself, as a structuring principle with an impact on other socio-spatial configurations, or as a structuring field, produced in part through the impact of other socio-spatial configurations. The novelty of the RCs consists of adding a fifth configuration, namely time, to the analytical framework. The spatio-temporal dimension in combination with the TPSN framework will enable the RCs to analyse transformations, articulations and manifestations in past forms of complex spatialities. Therefore, the RCs will provide a ‘thick description’ of spaces and spatiality by involving the dynamic articulation of at least two or more among the dimensions.

Sources:

Allen, Matthew G. and Sinclair Dinnen, ‘Is the ‘hybrid turn’ a ‘spatial turn’? A geographical perspective on hybridity and state-formation in the Western Pacific’, Third World Thematics: A TWO Journal, 2017, 1–18.

Jessop, Bob, Neil Brenner and Martin Jones, ‘Theorizing sociospatial relations’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26, 2008, 389–401.

Wenzlhuemer, Roland, ‘Globalization, communication and the concept of space in global history’, Historical Social Research 35:1, 2010, 19–47.