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Spatial Questions
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Spatial Questions
Cultural Topologies and Social Spatialisation

  • Rob Shields - Sociology, Art and Design, University of Alberta, Canada


August 2013 | 216 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

"Rob Shields provides here an immensely sophisticated and detailed examination of the topological turn. He has been examining these issues for some decades and this book will surely become the standard work on cultural and spatial topology"
- John Urry, Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

Our understanding of space is crucial to the way in which we understand major social problems and issues and the way we develop and maintain our worldviews. 

Building from a history of philosophical and geographical theories of space, Shields presents the importance of spatialisation and cultural topology in social theory and the possibilities that lie within these theoretical tools.

Innovative and thought-provoking, this book goes beyond traditional ideas of spatiality and temporality to understand the multiplicity of spatialisations and relates them to everyday life.

 
Overtures
 
From the Shan Hai Jing to Herodotus' Historiae and to Idrisi's Kitab Nuzhat
 
Mediterranean Geographies
 
Spatialisation and Space-Time
 
The Argument of this Book
 
Spatialisations
 
Space as Problem: Etymology/Translation
 
'L'espace Lefebvre'
 
Respecting Lefebvre: Critical Tensions
 
The Spatialisations of Places and Regions
 
Memorial and Anticipatory Spatialisation: Time-Spaces
 
Vieux Quebec: The Example of Tourist Practices
 
Histories of Space
 
Mediterranean Geometric Space
 
Northern Europe: Mathematical Space
 
Dimensionality: Three, Four or More?
 
Flatness
 
Relativistic Space
 
The Socialness of Space
 
Recognising Spatialisation
 
Marx: The Economics of Land
 
Engels: Inequality and the Built Environment
 
Simmel: Spatial Projections of Social Forms
 
Cultural Understanding of Space: Emile Durkheim
 
Physical Planning, Land Use Planning, Spatialisation and Spatial Semantics
 
Spatial Struggles
 
Discourses on Space
 
Topologies
 
'Another Kind of Analysis' - Beyond Geometry
 
Connectivity and Schematics
 
Geometry and Topology
 
The Seven Bridges of Königsburg
 
Non-Euclidean Space
 
The Topological Sensorium
 
Dimensionality and Orientability
 
Topological Archetypes: Folds, Bridges, Labyrinths
 
The 'Plushness' of the Real
 
Cultural Topology
 
Diagrams
 
Deleuze Folding Foucault
 
Heterotopias of Scale
 
Scale and Topology
 
Topology and the Social - Networks, Surfaces and Milieux
 
Relations and Boundary Objects
 
Cultural Topology
 
A Topology of Experience
 
The Cusp
Glossary of Terms

 

'Rob Shields provides here an immensely sophisticated and detailed examination of the topological turn. He has been examining these issues for some decades and this book will surely become the standard work on cultural and spatial topology'

John Urry
Distinguished Professor, Dept of Sociology, Lancaster University

Spatial Questions provides one of the most complete accounts in the recent literature engaging with topology. The reader might be deceived by the apparently slim format, which nevertheless packs material that could easily inform several volumes on the topic. Spatial Questions is a welcome contribution to spatial theory and, given the prominence of the topic nowadays, as well as the hype built around the topological over the past years, the book might equally appeal to geographers and to a broader audience within the social sciences.

Iulian Barba-Lata, Wageningen University
Society and Space, Environment and Planning

Spatial Questions: Cultural Topologies and Social Spatialisation provides an important contribution to the study of topology at large and to those who engage with human geography in particular, coinciding with recent topological discussions in such journals as Progress in Human Geography (2014), Theory, Culture & Society (2012) and Dialogues in Human Geography (2011). As in his previous writings, Shields’ provides a vivid and clear discussion, accessible to a wide range of readers from various disciplines. These undoubtedly will find the call for a ‘topological turn’ valuable and thought provoking.

Yuval Karplus, Independent researcher
Geography Research Forum

A welcome contribution to spatial theory... allowing for a new and fresh understanding of “spacing” and the spatialisations that are accomplished through everyday activities, representations and conflicts.

Federico Boni, University of Milan
Sociologica

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter One: Overtures


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