Theory of Space

How are we to understand digital objects? How are we to relate ‘cyberspace’ to physical space? This chapter attempts to provide a set of theoretical tools to understand ‘spaces’ of online interaction and what happens within them without resorting to filamentous constructions of ‘disembodied’ online interaction or to the underlying idealistic Cartesian dualism that pervades many of the theoretical positions that ostensibly refute it. To do so, I make connections between cognitive processes of human subjectivity, the embodied, gestural enactments of physical social spaces, and the social interactions that take place in online environments. The crux of the argument is that like identity, meaning and subjectivity are social phenomena: individual cognition requires social interaction. Similarly, social interaction, mediated or immediate, defines our spaces of subjectivity. This connecting of online ‘spaces’ to embodied cognition may provide a way to understand digital objects and the online interactions they enable through a reconsideration of the concept of space.

In this chapter, I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways, sensorily and motility-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual presence engages and synchronizes with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects. First, I consider Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of perception, giving particular attention to his claim that perception involves a lived dynamic between perceptual body and world such that aspects of the world—for example, the heavy hardness of a granite block or the cool smoothness of a chrome railing—are known because they immediately evoke in the lived body their experienced qualities.

Second, I consider the architectural and environmental significance of what Merleau-Ponty calls body-subject—pre-reflective corporeal awareness expressed through action and typically in sync with and enmeshed in the physical world in which the action unfolds. I focus on the taken-for-granted sensibility of body-subject to manifest in extended ways over time and space. I ask how routine actions and behaviors of individuals coming together regularly in an environment can transform that environment into a place with a unique dynamic and character—a lived situation I term place ballet. For both perception and body-subject, I consider how qualities of the physical and designable world—for example, materiality, form, and spatiality—contribute to the lived body’s engagement with and actions in the world.

Note: This chapter was written in 2014 for a proposed edited collection on Merleau-Ponty and architecture. Unfortunately, the editors did not find a publisher(though I was never officially informed of this fact). The chapter has been rewritten, revised, and updated; see the above entry: "Merleau-Ponty, Environmental Embodiment, and Place" (2022)
"

Long-distance commuting (also called fly-in/fly-out or FIFO) is a system of labour-force provision for industrial operations in remote regions; e. g., at oil and gas extraction sites in the Russian Arctic. Employees  commute on a rotational shift basis of 14 days in and 14 days out (14/14) or on a 30/30 roster. This chapter is based on longterm ethnographic research in the northwestern Siberian Arctic. The theoretical considerations relate to coping strategies for the two main constraints inherent to this way of life: the separation of meaningful social spheres (home and on duty) and the ascription of deviance to this lifestyle. People who cope well with this multilocal and mobile way of life pursue two strategies: (1) the conscious integration of space through the simultaneous connecting and separation of the spheres in order to constitute an integrated, enlarged and meaningful social and geographical space and (2) a flexible process of normalisation which turns the ascription of deviance into potential.

http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0156-09764

«Abbiamo alle spalle un periodo in cui pensiero e sentimento erano realmente divisi. Questo scisma produsse individui il cui sviluppo interiore fu ineguale, e che mancavano di equilibrio interiore: personalità dissociate. La personalità dissociata quale caso psicopatico non rientra nel nostro argomento: noi ci occupiamo della mancanza di armonia interiore che poggia sulla struttura della personalità normale del nostro tempo.»

In queste parole si riconosce una celebre e metaforica affermazione dello storico e critico dell’architettura boemo Sigfried Giedion. Ciò che, in Spazio, Tempo ed Architettura, Giedion sottintende è che un’epoca di civiltà è tale quando si stabiliscono delle comunanze tra le forme del pensiero scientifico e quelle dell’espressione nelle arti. Affinità e sovrapposizioni di valori condivisi per cui si instaura un perfetto equilibrio tra ambiti differenti della conoscenza. In una tale condizione storica, è nell’opera d’arte totale che si sostanzia il desiderato equilibrio tra pensiero e sentimento, quindi tra le molteplici dimostrazioni dell’attitudine umana verso il ragionamento scientifico, da una parte, e le mutevoli manifestazioni della produzione nelle arti, dall’altra.
L’opera di artificio dell’uomo in cui si incarna l’ideale equilibrio tra ragione e sentimento, che Giedion attribuisce alle civiltà al loro apice storico, è l’architettura.

This article seeks to disrupt the deadly deployment of boundaries that mark particular people as normative or queer, socially living or dead. Conversing with the Decapolis of Mark 5:1-20 and Washington D.C.'s prostitution free zones (pfz), the present project deploys a hauntological and critical spatial response, that locates points of contact between transwomen of color in the U.S. capital and the possessed Gerasenes. This article challenges biblical scholars to lean into historiography that sees such stories-from the tombs and from the pfz-as politically active in and of themselves, and with one another. Mark 5:1-20 is imagined here as a place constructed by alliances of queer bodies spatialized into unlivability. Such alliances are resources for thinking beyond the neocapitalist drive to create deadly normativity through insides and outsides, suggesting that biblical texts are always already infused with demands from places where life is suffocated. Keywords Gospel of Mark-Gerasene demoniac-necropolitics-hauntology-queer theory-prostitution free zones © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 |

Atmosphären sind fragile Dinge. Dennoch werden wir kontinuierlich von ihnen beeinflusst. Gelegentlich sind wir in der Lage, eine Atmosphäre zu erzeugen, öfter aber erleben wir sie und lassen uns auf sie ein. In dieser Schrift möchte ich einen allgemeinen Blick auf das Thema der Atmosphären im Kunstfeld richten, ein Thema, welches uns direkt zum Szenischen und zur Gesellschaft des Spektakels führt. Des weiteren möchte ich auf den Einfluss der Oper auf die bildende Kunst verweisen und werde mich unter anderem auch mit den Gewinnerinnen der letzten zwei Biennali di Venezia auseinandersetzen; Anne Imhof (*1978) und Lina Lapelytė (*1984). Von diesen Beispielen aus gelangen wir wir zum eigentlichen Kern dieser Schrift; die Psychogeographie in der Kunst. Zur Feststellung werde ich mich an Landkarten von Video-Games sowie der Loci-Methode bedienen, Begriffe wie Raumerfahrung und Gesamtkunstwerk schließen sich von alleine an. Die Problematik des Mentalen Raumgefühls wird zur wichtigen Frage dieser Schrift, die ich so gut wie möglich untersuchen möchte. Die folgende Arbeit, die als Abschluss einer fünfjährigen Erfahrung meines Lebens dient, schlägt den Takt für meine späteren künstlerischen Recherchen.

Henri Lefebvre ist heute primär für eine bestimmte Periode seines Schaffens bekannt, als Theoretiker des Raums und der Urbanisierung. Weite Teile seines Werkes außerhalb dieser Periode bleiben hingegen unbeachtet. Der vorliegende Beitrag argumentiert, dass Lefebvres Schriften zu Stadt und Raum nur im Kontext seiner lebenslangen, an Marx angelehnten Beschäftigung mit Entfremdung und den Potenzialen menschlicher Praxis richtig zu erfassen sind. Der von Lefebvre diagnostizierte abstrakte Raum ist eine sozio-räumliche Ausformung des Entfremdungsphänomens in kapitalistischen Gesellschaften. Explizit in diesem Kontext konzipiert Lefebvre sein Recht auf die Stadt: als kollektives demokratisches Recht. Erst durch eine praktische Ausübung dieses Rechts können sich Potenziale des menschlichen Gemeinwesens demokratisch entfalten.

Sin dalla fine del XIX secolo, il termine spazio ricorre costantemente nella letteratura architettonica, tanto da essere giunto, nel tempo, a ricapitolare quasi integralmente i temi del progetto. Per gli architetti e tutti gli altri progettisti che si occupano della trasformazione dell’ambiente, dunque, lo spazio rappresenta un tema centrale, dotato peraltro di una specificità disciplinare. Tuttavia, a fronte di questo carattere fondante, il discorso teorico sullo spazio in architettura appare oggi inadeguato, minato da una vaghezza che lo rende inapplicabile come strumento per la pratica del progetto, nonché datato, se consideriamo che molte delle (peraltro controverse) formulazioni teoriche cui si fa riferimento nel parlare di spazio architettonico risalgono alla metà del secolo scorso.
Al contrario, negli ultimi venti anni nelle scienze umane si è assistito ad uno spatial turn che ha interessato trasversalmente la geografia umana, l’antropologia e la filosofia, con importanti ramificazioni nelle scienze cognitive e affettive. Con varie declinazioni, lo spazio è divenuto centrale nella descrizione della relazione del soggetto con l’ambiente circostante e con gli altri soggetti che lo occupano; relazione costituita dalla corporeità vissuta degli individui, dalle azioni percettive e dalla risposta affettiva, in una dinamica di costante codeterminazione. Anche nella teoria dell’architettura contemporanea è giunta l’eco di queste trasformazioni del pensiero, elaborate tuttavia in forma asistematica ed eccessivamente semplificatoria.
Il volume Vita nello spazio. Sull’esperienza affettiva dell’architettura si pone l’obiettivo di descrivere un modello di spazio che tenga conto della complessità e ricchezza dell’esperienza che il soggetto fa dell’ambiente. Tale esperienza si fonda sulla risposta preriflessiva allo spazio, momento che fonda l’apprezzamento e influenza le successive interpretazioni da parte del soggetto. Al centro dell’indagine la dinamica percezione – movimento – emozione, fondata sulla corporeità del soggetto e centrale nel comprendere il modo in cui agiamo negli ambienti che abitiamo
Pur basandosi su una diversità di ambiti disciplinari, il libro è centrato sulle questioni inerenti il progetto architettonico, avvalendosi di un ampio numero di esempi di ambienti costruiti, dei quali vengono descritte le condizioni situazionali che influenzano la percezione dello spazio da parte del soggetto. Si tratta quindi di un volume a carattere introduttivo, che coniuga aspetti centrali dell’architettura con temi derivanti dalla fenomenologia, dall’estetica, dalle scienze cognitive ed affettive, in un’ottica di aggiornamento del concetto di spazio secondo quanto elaborato in altri ambiti scientifici.

The aim of this paper is to explore Deleuze’s interpretation of Kant’s argument from incongruent counterparts. First, I look at Kant’s use of the argument to provide a refutation of the Leibnizian account of space, before showing how this criticism in fact rests on the question of whether all of the determinations an object possesses can be understood entirely in conceptual terms (whether objects possess what Kant calls ‘internal differences’). Second, I show how Deleuze develops a taxonomy of difference on the basis of his reading of Kant’s argument. Finally, I look at what Deleuze sees as the limitations in Kant’s understanding of difference, and Deleuze’s attempt to overcome these limitations through the introduction of the notion of the Idea, which will provide a genetic and non-conceptual account of the object. In doing so, I show why Deleuze takes the formulation of an adequate account of difference to be one of the central aims of his own metaphysics.

Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank represents a crucial issue in the Israeli– Palestinian conflict. Through the examination of a single case study—the planning history of the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adummim, located in the eastern periphery of the city—the paper addresses the complex nexus between planning and state-building practices; building on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space, he offers an account of the role of Israel’s settlement policy in the transformation of the material, symbolic, and political landscape of the metropolitan area of Jerusalem. My main argument is that the observation of the development of large suburban communities in the metropolitan area—a blind spot both in media and in academic discourse—is crucial for our understanding of the settlement policy as a whole, and its impact on Israeli–Palestinian relations.

FROM THE BACK COVER: What is the essential nature of meaning? . . . . . This book answers by examining interpretive theories from the past and present. It finds that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation, a struggle that reaches crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand, this crisis is mollified by Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology, which argues that we are always already in a meaningful relationship to the objects of the world. On the other hand, this crisis is exacerbated when phenomenology, structuralism, and aesthetic theory directly make meaning into an object of study. . . . . . . . . These historical developments culminate with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose non-hermeneutical phenomenology delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity. Intriguingly, Lacan's work reveals meaning to be sexual in nature. By integrating his notion of sexual difference with his work in discourse theory and topology, this book demonstrates how the subject's struggle with meaning can be suspended.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Broadly speaking, the majority of books on Jacques Lacan focus on the earlier periods of his career. They also tend to target the psychoanalytic clinical community, or else discuss his work in various political, social, and cultural contexts. But in almost all cases these books refrain from a detailed exegesis of his actual texts. They instead prefer to comment on his theoretical apparatus as a whole before turning to its practical implications. . . . . . This book positions itself against this grain. Firstly, it closely analyzes some half-dozen key Lacanian texts. This analysis is organized under a single thematic – the question of meaning – in order to advance the reader's understanding of the trajectory of Lacan's thought across his entire career, as well as to promote the book's thesis that the field of meaning can be suspended. Accordingly, an initial chapter takes up the hermeneutical tradition from Flacius onward. This is then supplemented by a chapter which surveys phenomenological, structuralist and aesthetic theories of meaning and their differing methods of textual analysis. Together these two chapters provide a unique context for the sustained analysis of Lacan's texts which begins in the third chapter, an analysis that forms the bulk of the book's content. This contextualization potentially widens the book's appeal to any scholar wishing to explore his relationship to those textual objects he interacts with on a daily basis. And because this book assumes the reader has little to no familiarity with Lacan, the reader will find patient explanations of the basics of his theories before slowly being led up to the more difficult theories of his late years. Again the argument is that Lacan has something to offer all scholars. His work is not just reserved for psychoanalysts. . . . . . It is with his late theories that the serious student of Lacan will find the book's most original contribution. For in the fourth chapter a detailed account is provided of how Lacan derived his infamous formulae of sexuation from Aristotelian logic. These formulae are then extensively discussed against the backdrop of interpretive theory and textual analysis, showing how these formulae capture much more than just the difference between the sexes. Strikingly, this difference is also found to run through meaning itself, something the final chapter aims to demonstrate. It does this by amalgamating three key components of late-Lacan: sexuation, discourse theory and his use of topological spaces. This amalgamation is a first in the literature. But this amalgamation is not just useful in demonstrating the book's thesis. It further suggests how seemingly divergent aspects of late-Lacanian theory can be made to work together.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

Recent turns in social sciences, namely the visual, qualitative, actorial or spatial turns, all indicate a rising interest in individuals. Since the aesthetic dimension always nourishes and informs individuals' spatialities and their decision-making processes, my research explores how the subjective realm of the aesthetic has proved itself able to generate conditions that lead to action, and consequently influence other dimensions of society, especially in the ethical, political or legal realms. My systemic approach is grounded in the relational theory of space, the phenomenological study of the imagination, and the theory of urbanity. Hence, I investigated both urbanity and beauty as some of the most intriguing and interesting emergent (and not resultant!) phenomena of the urban system; where urbanity belongs to its objective realm and beauty to its subjective realm. It is essential to recognize that humans, unlike the components that create the natural systems, are capable of a particular sort of action due to their imaginative capacities that allow them to overpass the actual perceived world. The aesthetic dimension directly involves the human imaginative consciousness, which in turn activates the realm of the virtual, i.e., the realm that which exists only in a latent state, and does not appear visibly (fr. ce qui n'est qu'en puissance). While engaged in aesthetic experience, humans exhibit a particular sort of intentionality through which they bring to mind what is not visible through what is present and perceived. By making use of their lived body, individuals are capable to engage in a particular sort of imaginative play through which memories of the past, anticipations of the future and the actualized perceived present are conjured together, informing one another. Since every human intentional experience is spatialized, I investigated a particular spatial structure through which aesthetic experience occurs as such. I called this structure aesthetic space. In the last chapter, I investigate more precisely the influence of the urban environment on the way in which individuals' aesthetic judgments evolve and mature. By considering the experience of modernity and the city as pivotal in the construction of individuals' aesthetic sensitivities, I explore the spatial component of aesthetic judgments on some particular cases. I also focus on the importance of the urban public space, the lifestyle change, as well as on the period of childhood, which appear to be critical to the (aesthetic) development of individuals.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

This Chapter engages with a proposed urban renewal project undertaken by the State government of West Bengal in India for an artists’ colony in Kolkata, known as Kumartuli. After getting initial support from the residents, the project has received substantial resistance from them. This evokes the question as to how space has been envisaged both by the State and the inhabitants of the area. Through the lens of Lefebvre’s production of space in the neo-liberal age, it will delve into the reasons behind the project’s unforeseen termination. Kumartuli, the idol makers’ colony, dates back to the 16th century and it produces life size clay idols each year which is required for several Hindu festivals annually. The State government has come up with an urban renewal plan which intended to give Kumartuli a ‘modern’ look with state-of-the-art artist studios and multistoried apartments. It is at this juncture that I seek to raise the question that, in the age of capitalist production when space has been conceptualized by the State as a commodity which needs ‘renewal’, how are other agencies of society looking at the same? Here, I would locate urban renewal projects taken up by the State government and other civil actors as a neo-liberal articulation of capital through the register of land. This Chapter further contextualises the Kumartuli project’s impasse within the overall political situation of the State. Is the response from the people a reflection of the intense circumstances in the State regarding the land rights issue, or is their insecurity not only emanating from the loss of entitlement of land but also from a deep attachment with their ancestral land? This Chapter attempts to see whether there is a scope to look beyond the capitalist production of space and acknowledge other forms of production of space following Lefebvre’s spatial triad.

This thesis is about creative strategies for staging places as performances. To remain viable in the rapidly changing technological and social context, architecture needs to extend its engagement with research, reappraise its fundamental goals and develop creative strategies adequate to new challenges.

However, utilisation of research in design disciplines is still immature and the methodologies of this utilisation remain a matter of controversy and active debate. In particular, the potential of cross-pollination between designing and research requires further clarification. This thesis addresses this need by developing a methodological approach that combines participant observation and investigative designing. Utilising these methodologies, this thesis considers several case-studies, including interactive installations and virtual environments.

Engagement with case-studies through participant observation and investigative designing in this thesis motivates a discussion that reinstates place as the focus of architectural practice. Existing discourse and practice in architecture often assume retrograde, romantic, essentialist and exclusionary understandings of places, for example as singular, bounded and static. By contrast, this thesis highlights an open and flexible vision of places as performances. Considering the possible roles of architectural designing in place-making, it suggests that architects cannot produce ready places but can engender placemaking performances and influence their growth with provocative, open and collaborative creative-design strategies.

Having established the case for distributed, polyphonic, campaigning creativity in place-making, this thesis considers whether design computing can support its performative needs. Commonly, researchers and practitioners in architecture express concerns that design computing can hinder human creativity. By contrast, this thesis demonstrates that design computing can support distributed creativity by staging multiplicious, open, flexible, idea- and insight-generating participatory exchanges. In the process, this thesis considers interactive cinematography and procedural designing as place-making actions. This re-conceptualization demonstrates that design computing can usefully support creative place-making and sometimes be indispensable for its success.

This thesis contributes to knowing by 1) utilising and presenting an unorthodox methodological approach to architectural research; 2) presenting an approach to understanding and making of places novel to the field of architecture; and 3) re-conceptualizing innovative design-computing as an important creative resource for placemaking.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

Radical geographers have been preoccupied with Marxism for four decades, largely ignoring an earlier anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s. When anarchism is considered, it is misused as a synonym for violence or derided as a utopian project. Yet it is incorrect to assume anarchism as a 'project', which instead reflects Marxian thought. Anarchism is more appropriately considered a protean process that perpetually unfolds through the insurrectionary geographies of the everyday and the prefigurative politics of direct action, mutual aid, and voluntary association. Unlike Marxism’s stages of history and revolutionary imperative, which imply an end-state, anarchism appreciates the dynamism of the social world. In staking a renewed anarchist claim for radical geography, I attend to the divisions between Marxism and anarchism as two alternative socialisms, wherein the former positions equality alongside an ongoing flirtation with authoritarianism while the latter maximizes egalitarianism and individual liberty by considering them as mutually reinforcing. Radical geographers would do well to reengage anarchism as there is a vitality to this philosophy that is missing from Marxian analyses that continue to rehash ideas–such as vanguardism and a proletarian dictatorship–that are long past their expiration date.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

Megaproject Planning and Management: Essential Readings contains the seminal articles from the growing body of research on megaproject planning and management along with an original introduction by the editor, Bent Flyvbjerg. The leading and most cited authority in the field, Flyvbjerg has used crowdsourcing and 25 years of experience to cherry-pick from several hundred articles and books the writings that define the field. This volume will be an indispensable source for those wishing to speak with authority about how megaprojects are prepared, delivered, and fought over. The target audience is students, academics, practitioners, and media pundits alike, as well as communities affected by megaprojects.

Anarchism and geography have a long and disjointed history, characterized by towering peaks of intensive intellectual engagement and low troughs of ambivalence and disregard. This paper traces a genealogy of anarchist geographies back to the modern development of anarchism into a distinct political philosophy following the Enlightenment. The initial rise of geographers’ engagement with anarchism occurred at the end of the nineteenth-century, owing to Élisée Reclus and Peter Kropotkin, who developed an emancipatory vision for geography in spite of the discipline’s enchantment with imperialism at that time. The realpolitik of the war years in the first half of the twentieth-century and the subsequent quantitative revolution in geography represent a nadir for anarchist geographies. Yet anarchism was never entirely abandoned by geographical thought and the counterculture movement of the 1970s gave rise to radical geography, which included significant interest in anarchist ideas. Unfortunately another low occurred during the surge of neoliberal politics in the 1980s and early 1990s, but hope springs eternal, and from the late 1990s onward the anti-globalization movement and DIY culture have pushed anarchist geographies into more widespread currency. In reviewing the literature, I hope to alert readers to the ongoing and manifold potential for anarchist geographies to inform both geographical theory and importantly, to give rise to more practice-based imperatives where building solidarities, embracing reciprocity, and engaging in mutual aid with actors and communities beyond the academy speaks to the ‘freedom of geography’ and its latent capacity to shatter its own disciplinary circumscriptions.

Neoliberal economics have emerged in the post-Cold War era as the predominant ideological tenet applied to the development of countries in the global south. For much of the global south, however, the promise that markets will bring increased standards of living and emancipation from tyranny has been an empty one. Instead, neoliberalisation has increased the gap between rich and poor and unleashed a firestorm of social ills.

This book deals with the post-conflict geographies of violence and neoliberalisation in Cambodia. Applying a geographical analysis to contemporary Cambodian politics, the author employs notions of neoliberalism, public space, and radical democracy as the most substantive components of its theoretical edifice. He argues that the promotion of unfettered marketisation is the foremost causal factor in the country’s inability to consolidate democracy following a United Nations sponsored transition. The book demonstrates Cambodian perspectives on the role of public space in Cambodia's process of democratic development and explains the implications of violence and its relationship with neoliberalism.

Taking into account the transition from war to peace, authoritarianism to democracy, and command economy to a free market, this book offers a critical appraisal of the political economy in Cambodia.
______________________________________________________

Reviews:

Gunn, G. C. 2013. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43.1: 188-191.

Brickell, K. 2011. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52.3: 372-374.

Percival, T. 2011. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 32.2: 270-272.

Christie, R. 2010. South East Asia Research, 19.2: 349-372.

Ordóñez de Pablos, P. 2010. International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management, 1.4: 65-66.

Man, even though he may sometimes dream of being a pure spirit free from all material constraints, actually exists as a body in a world which is itself essentially constructed as a spatialized system of bodies; and in this constructed world features such as resistance, impenetrability, inertia, weight and forces are not accidents or exceptions but the rule.
The reflexions presented in this work aim at elucidating on a phenomenological level the relation that man entertains with the tangible aspects of his environment, and the function that this relation plays in the construction of the different sectors of his existence. The first of the sectors is perception: the opening on an ambient world that is pregnant with organisation and meaning. On the one hand, we shall take into account and conceptualize the way in which the tangibility of the world (the testing experience that the individual can have of resistance of his environment in the frame of a direct bodily relation with that environment, but more generally the understanding that the individual possesses of the very possibility of such a relation) participates in setting up the rationality by which man renders his world intelligible. On the other hand, we shall identify the structures of “subjectivity” (to speak the language of psychology, the structures of cognition) which make possible the specific way in which man constructs his experience and understanding of tangible resistance – whether this resistance is perceived in the context of an actual bodily engagement, or whether it is envisaged “indirectly” in the guise of a “simple” possibility.
We shall show here, on the basis of phenomenological analyses as well as elements coming from empirical psychology (experimental psychology as well as neuropsychology), that the relation that man has with the resistance of his ambient world depends on an opening towards the possible; and that the organisation of the ambient world in the form of a space which can contain material structures, or structures capable of opposing a resistance to the body, depends on a rationality which consists of making phenomena intelligible by interpreting them with reference to those capacities for action and for passion which the body confers on us, to the power that the body provides us with and the constraints to which it submits us.
Thus, even though the realm of material things – tangible objects, bodies – functions as an archetype of “presence” and of “being” (indeed, what is more “real” than a body?), in the last resort it gains its phenomenal character from the fact that it crystallizes for the person who perceives it a stream of virtual possibilities; hence, the here-and-now presence of the “tangible world” is in an essential way indebted to the realm of that which is not actually realized.

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

Contemporary geographical thought is constrained by a political economic imagination rooted in binarism, which is exemplified in debates surrounding neoliberalism. Neoliberal proponents call for decentralization and increased capital flows, while Marxists respond by pairing centralization with capitalism’s abrogation. The latter view considers hierarchy necessary, a position that promotes authority and regards horizontal politics as propitious to neoliberalism. Anarchism’s coupling of decentralization with anti-capitalism is dismissed because Marxism cannot accommodate the processuality of prefigurative politics. Marxism demands a revolution with a masterplan, considering horizontality a future objective. Such a temporality ignores the insurrectionary possibilities of the present and implies a politics of waiting. The spatial implications of centralized hierarchy are also questionable, employing a vertical ontology, wherein horizontal organization is deemed inappropriate when ‘jumping scales’. Yet scale represents both a theoretical dis-traction from grounded everyday particularities and a ‘master-signifier’ by providing a point de capiton, or anchoring point, that rests on the exclusion of unconsciousness–the knowledge that is not known¬. Thus the point de capiton is the (Archimedean) point at which an essentialist illusion of fixed meaning is created, as scale is unconscious of geography’s ‘hidden enfolded immensities’. The discourse of scale accordingly dismisses the openness of rhizomic politics by predetermining the political as an arborescent register. Yet the inevitable terra incognita that scalar hierarchies produce becomes a powerful resource for the oppressed, which is why anarchist direct action often proceeds outside of authority’s view. A flat ontology has significant resonance with anarchism, imparting that politics should operate horizontally rather than vertically. This ontological shift suggests that we need not wait for the emergence of a ‘greater’ class-consciousness, as one can immediately disengage capitalism by reorienting economic landscapes in alternative ways. Consequently, a human geography without hierarchy gains significant traction when we reject scale and embrace an anarchist flat ontology.

Information technology (IT) and space are sociomaterial dimensions of organizations that Human Resource Management (HRM) often take for granted, discounting how workers enact them in practice. With digital technologies rapidly changing the spaces of work, this paper proposes a framework for HRM to appreciate the role of the lived, affective experience of ITenabled (physical and virtual) hybrid workspaces. We integrate the information systems (IS) literature on sociomaterial practices and insights on organizational space to suggest implications for HRM practice and pathways for future research on how virtual and physical spaces are related and lived in the emergence of new hybrid workplaces and practices.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

This article is a manifesto for anarchist geographies, which are understood as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow for multiple, non-hierarchical, and protean connections between autonomous entities, wherein solidarities, bonds, and affinities are voluntarily assembled in opposition to and free from the presence of sovereign violence, predetermined norms, and assigned categories of belonging. In its rejection of such multivariate apparatuses of domination, this article is a proverbial call to nonviolent arms for those geographers and non-geographers alike who seek to put an end to the seemingly endless series of tragedies, misfortunes, and catastrophes that characterize the miasma and malevolence of the current neoliberal moment. But this is not simply a demand for the end of neoliberalism and its replacement with a more moderate and humane version of capitalism, nor does it merely insist upon a more egalitarian version of the state. It is instead the resurrection of a prosecution within geography that dates back to the discipline’s earliest days: anarchism!

Using a cultural studies approach, this dissertation aims to explore in which way humans have been dealing with delivered space in western Europe since the Industrial Revolution, how despite a growing need for space there are high urban vacancy rates and especially, it focuses on how we can generate a renewed view on vacant sites and properties. In order to investigate this research question properly, this thesis is divided into two main parts: the first part aims to present a theoretical framework, while the second part is more practically oriented. Part one deals with the way in which humans have been shaping space by interaction with their surroundings. It starts by exploring Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the social production of space, which will be linked with Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra and simulations. Along the way, Michel Foucault’s view on space as a political power construction will be picked up as well, which will eventually be embraced by Edward Soja’s solution-oriented Thirdspace theory. Soja gradually moves from an impression of space that he shares with Lefebvre and Foucault towards presenting a strategy for urban innovation. The second part of this dissertation then elaborates on the durable possibilities of recycling space as opposed to the short-term efficiency of demolishing and recreating new space. It presents three different ways in which vacancy is being dealt with today, which are 1. top-down by policy makers and city planners, 2. bottom-up by creative spatial entrepreneurs and 3. a combination in which these two dimensions co-operate. It then highlights the power of temporary use as a catalyst for sustainable urban development and innovation: temporary uses can contribute to a more dynamic use of urban space by slowing down (de)construction rates and increasing the optimum efficient use of delivered space. Finally, the obtained theoretical framework and practical insights will come together in a final section in which the possibilities for creating a sustainable future for the city are explored. In order to better adapt urban spaces to future economic shifts, three dimensions need to be taken into account: 1. demolition rates need to be restricted to the level of absolute necessity only, 2. delivered spaces need more recycling through temporary use as well as long-term reuse and 3. if new structures need to be created, they can be designed to be more adaptable towards future functionalities.

Öz: Makalenin amacı Lefebvre'nin 'Mekânın Üretimi' kitabının bir okumasını gerçekleştirerek, kitapta öne sürülen mekân kuramının yapısının ve temel kavramsal çerçevesinin yeniden değerlendirilmesidir. Bundan hareketle kuramın temel yapısı olarak her üretim tarzında üretilmekte olan mekânların çözümlemesine yönelik Lefebvre'nin önerdiği dönemselleştirmesi değerlendirilmiştir. Ayrıca makalede toplumsal mekânın anlamlandırılması ve kavramsallaştırılması için kuramda öne sürülen mekânsal üçlü değerlendirilmiştir. Böylece, somut bağlamda gerçekleştirilebilecek herhangi bir araştırma için Lefebvre'nin kuramının kolayca uygulanabilir ve benimsenebilir bir kavramsal çerçevesi çizilmiştir.


A Reading of the Structural and Conceptual Framework of Lefebvre’s Theory of Space

Abstract: By reading Lefebvre's book 'The Production of Space' book, this paper aims to reassess the structure and main conceptual framework of the theory of space presented in the book. Based on this as a main structure of the theory, Lefebvre's periodization of space – aimed at the tracing the spaces being produced during each mode of production – is discussed. In the paper, the spatial triad aiming at understanding and conceptualization of social space is discussed as well. Thus, for any study of space in different contexts, an easily adoptable and applicable structural and conceptual framework of Lefebvre's theory is presented.

Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that violence is 'irrational' marks particular cultures as ‘other’. Neoliberalism exploits such imaginative geographies in constructing itself as the sole providence of nonviolence and the lone bearer of reason. Proceeding as a ‘civilizing’ project, neoliberalism positions the market as salvationary to putatively ‘irrational’ and ‘violent’ peoples. This theology of neoliberalism produces a discourse that binds violence in place. But while violence sits in places in terms of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is reconsidered as a relational assemblage. What this re-theorization does is open up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to instead recognize it as always co-constituted by, mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated and localized event, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, derived from the broader geographical phenomena and temporal patterns of the social world.

Analysis on the short stories, publicism, and novels of Sándor Hunyady from the spatial poetic standpoint is based upon the structural models of interculturality, the theory of provisionality, and the methods of art history. The dissertation explores the issues of embedding spatial images and theories into literary works, and gives systems and structures of analysis to sufficiently examine a spatially defined life-work which in effect aims to create spatial feeling.

Atmospheres are fragile things. We are nonetheless constantly influenced by them. Occasionally we find ourselves able to create an atmosphere, but most often we find ourselves experiencing them and allowing ourselves to be immersed in them. In this work, I will look generally at the subject of atmospheres in the field of art, a topic which leads us directly to the scenic and the Society of the Spectacle. Not in the world of ‘moral leadership’, but rather in today’s ‘emotional leadership’, the ‘Empire of the Self’, we find countless examples of and connections to the Romantic. Given the necessity here to delineate the field of research, as a point of departure I will focus on a single personality who, for these purposes, can be seen as a visionary of the 21st century. An enlightening example for our explorations is provided by the soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986). His studies of atmospheres such as the series later titled Instant Light show him to be a researcher who had presciently implemented philosophical theories of today. Further to this, I will examine the influence of opera on the visual arts, looking at examples including the winners of the last two Biennali di Venezia; Anne Imhof (*1978) and Lina Lapelytė (*1984). Based on these two examples we come to the core consideration of this thesis - that of psychogeography in art. Although the concept of psychogeography has most obviously influenced areas like architecture theory, town planning, geography and psychology, it was originally coined by the Situationist International artists. The term is thus brought back to its original context, in which we must now make a distinction between the mental and the physical psychogeographical understanding. I will examine and elucidate these concepts with reference to maps in computer games and the method of loci; in addition to which the terms spatial experience and Gesamtkunstwerk (complete work of art) automatically come into play. Performative works such as Anne Imhof’s “Faust” 2017 and Sun & Sea (Marina) 2019 by Lina Lapelytė, Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė and Vaiva Grainytė are particularly suitable examples for us to consider. The problematics of mental sense of space inform one of the most important questions of this work, which I will investigate as thoroughly as possible. This thesis, forming the conclusion of a five-year-long life experience, sets the tone for my later artistic research.

The contributions to this book explore the spatiality of state power in historical and contemporary capitalism. The observation that states are spatial entities may seem self-evident to many readers. Modern states are demarcated from each other by territorial boundaries that they patrol and regulate for military, police, economic, political, demographic, and many other reasons. Likewise, modern states are internally divided into diverse territorial jurisdictions and administrative subdivisions. The most cursory glance at a contemporary world political map seems to confirm the self-evident character of these spatial properties of the modern state. For such maps depict a plethora of distinct state territories, large and small, separated from one another by a global grid of boundaries, and generally demarcated as colour-coded 'blocks' of space on a flat surface. Thus, each individual state is represented as a kind of container that separates an 'inside' of domestic political interactions from an 'outside' of international or interstate relations (Walker 1993). This container-metaphor also underpins conventional depictions of intra-national political spaces. Thus, each regional or local jurisdiction is viewed as a self-enclosed political territory within a nested hierarchy of geographical arenas contained within each other like so many Russian dolls. Our introduction identifies and comments on an emergent research agenda that is concerned with the production and transformation of state space. This agenda is particularly focused on the restructuring of territorially demarcated forms of state power and the recent decentring of nationally-scaled forms of state activity. It also highlights the differential effects of newly emergent political and state spaces on the structural and strategic capacities of the state, the mobilization of social forces and the dynamics and effectivity of political struggles. Taken together, as we explore below, these complementary research agendas are systematically challenging the entrenched geographical assumptions within mainstream approaches to state space.