Socio-spatial Theory

[Convenors: O’Neill and McGuirk (ECR) U Newcastle]

Space, space-time and place provide a framework for societal organisation and operation and for human behaviour and decision-making. But ‘space’ is also a social and behavioural construct. Recent thinking is reconceptualising spatial scales, building understanding of their social construction as outcomes of political and social processes, not just geometric givens. Rethinking existing theoretical paradigms that are disciplinary-based in those ‘meta paradigm’ contexts presents challenges for formulating new innovative theoretical constructs and conceptual SISS approaches that incorporate ‘explicitly spatial’ concepts such as:

1. spatial scale, shape, surface, density, location, proximity, connectedness; the measurement of space;
2. the meaning of place; behaviour(s) in space and place;
3. spatial cognition and perception; and
4. constructs of social space.

Key issues to address include:

1. ways to relate understandings of spatial scale as a socio-spatial construct to conventionally scaled data sets and frames of analysis;
2. the role of space in underpinning societal organisations, as in constructing capital, community and household relations, and human/environment interactions;
3. how processes of regulation and governance produce and steer socio-economic processes and the consequent contests and tensions;
4. how network connections and interactional flows, and the generation of corresponding concepts and metaphors, have implications for data configuration needs and for identifying appropriate scales for data gathering and analysis;
5. applications of SISS initiatives for informing new spatially-defined public policy initiatives and the behavioural impacts of changing perceptions of spatiality.