In the past two decades the interdisciplinary field between spatial and social sciences has undergone an extraordinarily dynamic development with a high potential for innovation. On the one hand, many social-scientific disciplines performed a “spatial turn” and became more interested in integrating spatial concepts and terminology. On the other hand, disciplines like human geography or spatial planning, understand space less as an exclusive object of analysis and instead emphasis a “spatial perspective” as a shared ontological ground. This has opened up a broad “trading zone” within which novel conceptualizations of space and spatiality are negotiated in an interdisciplinary field. Against this background, the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) together with different academic partners and supported by the Volkswagen Foundation launches a series of three successive Spring Academies entitled “Investigating Space(s): Current Theoretical and Methodological Approaches”.
Each event will focus on different aspects of the emergent thriving field. The opening event, the “IRS Spring Academy 2017: Part 1 Temporality and Procedurality” will take place from 2-5 May 2017 at the IRS in Erkner and at the Technische Universität Berlin. Part 2 on “Virtual Realities and socio-spatial practices” will follow in 2018 and Part 3 on “Topologies” in 2019.
