The sociology of space is a sub-discipline of sociology that mostly borrows from theories developed within the discipline of geography, including the sub fields of human geography, economic geography, and feminist geography. The "sociology" of space examines the social and material constitution of spaces. It is concerned with understanding the social practices, institutional forces, and material complexity of how humans and spaces interact. The sociology of space is an inter-disciplinary area of study, drawing on various theoretical traditions including Marxism, postcolonialism, and Science and Technology Studies, and overlaps and encompasses theorists with various academic disciplines such as geography and architecture. Edward T. Hall developed the study of Proxemics which concentrates on the empirical analysis of space in psychology.
Definition of space Space is one of the most important concepts within the disciplines of social science as it is fundamental to our understanding of geography. The term "space" has been defined variously by scholars:
In general terms, the Oxford English Dictionary defines space in two ways:
A continuous extension viewed with or without reference to the existence of objects within it. The interval between points or objects viewed as having one, two or three dimensions.
However, the human geographers' interest is in the objects within the space and their relative position, which involves the description, explanation and prediction of the distribution of phenomena. Thus, the relationships between objects in space is the central of the study.
Michel Foucault defines space as; "The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogeneous space…..we live inside a set of relations."
Nigel Thrift also defines space as; "The outcome of a series of highly problematic temporary settlements that divide and connect things up into different kinds of collectives which are slowly provided with the meaning which render them durable and sustainable."
In short, "space" is the social space in which we live and create relationships with other people, societies and surroundings. Space is an outcome of the hard and continuous work of building up and maintaining collectives by bringing different things into alignments. All kinds of different spaces can and therefore do exist which may or may not relate to each other. Thus, through space, we can understand more about social action.
History of the sociology of space
Georg Simmel has been seen as the classical sociologist who was most important to this field. Simmel wrote on "the sociology of space" in his 1908 book "Sociology: Investigations on the Forms of Sociation". His concerns included the process of metropolitanisation and the separation of leisure spaces in modern economic societies.
The category of space long played a subordinate role in sociological theory formation. Only in the late 1980s did it come to be realised that certain changes in society cannot be adequately explained without taking greater account of the spatial components of life. This shift in perspective is referred to as the spatial turn. The space concept directs attention to organisational forms of juxtaposition. The focus is on differences between places and their mutual influence. This applies equally for the micro-spaces of everyday life and the macro-spaces at the nation-state or global levels.
The theoretical basis for the growing interest of the social sciences in space was set primarily by English and French-speaking sociologists, philosophers, and human geographers. Of particular importance is Michel Foucault’s essay on "Of Other Spaces",Foucault, Michel (1991, orig. 1967), »Andere Räume«, in: Wentz, Martin (Hg.), Stadt-Räume, Frankfurt a. M./New York, S. 65–72 in which the author proclaims the "age of space", and Henri Lefebvre's seminal work "La production de l'espace".Lefebvre, Henri (1991, orig. 1974), The Production of Space, D. Nicholson-Smith trans., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, The latter provided the grounding for Marxist spatial theory on which David Harvey, Manuel Castells, Edward Soja, and others have built. Marxist theories of space, which are predicated on a structural, i.e., capitalist or global determinants of spaces and the growing homogenization of space, are confronted by action theoretical conceptions, which stress the importance of the corporeal placing and the perception of spaces as albeit habitually predetermined but subjective constructions. One example is the theory of space of the German sociologist Martina Löw.Löw, Martina (2001), Raumsoziologie, Frankfurt a. M.; The Sociology of Space in English by Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 Approaches deriving from the post-colonialism discourse have attracted greater attention in recent years. Also in contrast to Marxist concepts of space, British geographer Doreen MasseyMassey, Doreen (1999a), Power-Geometries and the Politics of Space-Time, HeidelbergMassey, Doreen (1999b), »Spaces of Politics«, in: Massey, Doreen/Allen, John/Sarre, Philip (Hg.), Human Geography Today, Cambridge/Oxford/Malden, S. 279–294 and German sociologist Helmuth Berking,Berking, Helmuth (1998), »›Global Flows and Local Cultures‹. Über die Rekonfiguration sozialer Räume im Globalisierungsprozeß«, in: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 8, 3, S. 381–392 for instance, emphasise the heterogeneity of local contexts and the place-relatedness of our knowledge about the world.
Duality of space
Martina Löw developed the idea of a "relational" model of space, which focuses on the "orderings"Löw, Martina (2008), »The Constitution of Space: The Structuration of Spaces Through the Simultaneity of Effects and Perception«, in: European Journal of Social Theory, 1, 11 of living entities and social goods, and examines how space is constituted in processes of perception, recall, or ideation to manifest itself as societal structure. From a social theory point of view, it follows on from the theory of structuration proposed by Anthony Giddens,Giddens, Anthony (1984), The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity whose concept of the "duality of structure" Löw extends sociological terms into a "duality of space". The basic idea is that individuals act as social agents (and constitute spaces in the process), but that their action depends on economic, legal, social, cultural, and, finally, spatial structures. Spaces are hence the outcome of action. At the same time, spaces structure action, that is to say spaces can both constrain and enable action.
With respect to the constitution of space, Löw distinguishes analytically between two, generally mutually determining factors: "spacing" and "synthesis". Spacing refers to the act of placing or the state of being placed of social goods and people in places. According to Löw, however, an ordering created through placings is only effectively constituted as space where the elements that compose it are actively interlinked by people – in processes of perception, ideation, or recall. Löw calls this synthesis. This concept has been empirically tested in studies such as those by Lars Meier (who examined the constitution of space in the everyday life of financial managers in London and Singapore), Cedric Janowicz (who carried out an ethnographical-space sociological study of food supply in the Ghanaian city of Accra), and Silke Streets (who looked at processes of space constitution in the creative industries in Leipzig).
Marxist approaches The social production of space
The most important proponent of Marxist spatial theory was Henri Lefebvre. He proposed "social space" to be where the relations of production are reproduced and that dialectical contradictions were spatial rather than temporal., p17-19 Lefebvre sees the societal production of space as a dialectical interaction between three factors, which exist in a kind of trialectics:
Spatial practice (perceived space): i.e., perceived physical space; space as reproduced in everyday life. "It embodies a close association, within perceived space, between daily reality (daily routine) and urban reality (the routes and networks which link up the places set aside for work, 'private' life and leisure)." Representation of space (conceived space): i.e., conceptualized representations of space; space as developed cognitively. "[C]onceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners ... [t]his is the dominant space in any society (or mode of production)." Representational spaces (lived space): i.e., symbolisations and ideational spaces. "[S]pace as directly lived through its associated images and symbols."
Lefebvre's statement that "(social) space is a (social) product" was influenced by Marx's commodity fetishism. His theory on social space was influenced by the Bauhaus art movement.
In Lefebvre's view of the 1970s, this spatial production resulted in a space of non-reflexive everydayness marked by alienation, dominating through mathematical-abstract concepts of space, and reproduced in spatial practice. Lefebvre sees a line of flight from alienated spatiality in the spaces of representation – in notions of non-alienated, mythical, pre-modern, or artistic visions of space.
Time-space compression
The Marxist spatial theory was given decisive new impetus by David Harvey, in particular, who was interested in the effects of the transition from Fordism to "flexible accumulation" on the experience of space and time.Harvey, David (1989), The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford. He shows how various innovations at the economic and technological levels have breached the crisis-prone inflexibility of the Fordist system, thus increasing the turnover rate of capital. This causes a general acceleration of economic cycles. According to Harvey, the result is "time–space compression". While the feeling for the long term, for the future, for continuity is lost, the relationship between proximity and distance becomes more and more difficult to determine.
Thirdspace
Lefebvre's spatial triad was then appropriated by different scholars, including Edward Soja and David Harvey, who carried on this new tradition in human geography. Among them, the most well-known appropriated version of the spatial triad is Thirdspace formulated by Soja. His theory categorizes urban space into three types:
Firstspace: the physical built environment, which can be mapped, quantifiably measured and 'seen' in the real world. Secondspace: conceptual space conceived in the minds of the people who inhabit it. Thirdspace: 'real and imagined' space, lived space, the way that people actually live in and experience that urban space.
Soja argues that our old ways to thinking about space (first and second space theories) can no longer accommodate the way the world works because he believed that spaces may not be contained within one social category, they may include different aspects of many categories or developed within the boundaries of a number of categories (e.g., two different cultures combine and emerge as a third culture; this third hybrid space displaces the original values that constitute it and set up new values and perspectives that is different from the first two spaces; thus, the third space theory can explain some of the complexity of poverty, social exclusion and social inclusion, gender and race issues.).
Mind–body problem Lefebvre introduced the concept of triadic representational spaces as a synthesis of mind–body dualism, as opposed to monism or phenomenology. Under a Lefebvrian "unity theory", the mind–body problem is brought together through the triad of social space, mental space, and physical space.