50.4 - Varieties of Refiguration I

Special Issue – Christian Imdorf, Arne Böker, Romuald Normand, Christian Schneijderberg & Rebecca Ye (Eds.): Varieties of Refiguration? On Multiple Spatialities, Spatial Arrangements, and the Economy.

Economic activity is inconceivable without space – yet sociological analyses of the economy often lack a distinctly spatial perspective. This volume bridges this gap by combining established economic sociological concepts with the innovative approach of spatial refiguration. At its core lies the insight that specific spatial arrangements are characterized by the interplay of different topological spatial figures – territorial space, network space, routes, and places. Since several of these spatial logics can be simultaneously relevant in the same situation, there are convergent and divergent tendencies both within spatial arrangements and in the socio-historical process of refiguration as a whole.

The contributions in this HSR Special Issue analyze multiple spatialities in three key areas: the refiguration of economic regions, the refiguration of spaces and infrastructures, and the refiguration of translocal chains of interdependence. In doing so, they overcome the US-Centrism and Eurocentrism of previous research through empirical studies from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, and small island states. With contributions from economic sociology, economic geography, political economy, and the sociology of space, this issue demonstrates that only by grasping the spatial complexity of the economy – including its geographic, symbolic, and material dimensions – can we truly understand global inequalities, power relations, and varieties of refiguration.