While ‘space’ and ‘place’ appear as key concepts in the study of culture, their complexity and mutability require ever-new frameworks when approaching them critically. Including chapters by authors from different fields, career stages, and geopolitical backgrounds, the contributors in this edited collection scrutinize the changing dynamics of space and place in relation to current political, social, and environmental urgencies across the globe.
With chapters investigating both real and imaginary spaces and places, the diversified discussions included in this collection provide a cohesive study for disclosing latent understandings of multiple phenomena characterizing the world in which we live. From the protests in Egyptian and Turkish squares, to the power-related narratives embedded in institutional buildings, from the development of the commercial arena in Victorian and Edwardian London, to the effects of current environmental concerns on the evaluation of urban and rural locations, the volume ultimately serves as a progressive connection of fields, minds, and outlooks through an innovative, pluralistic vision.
This interdisciplinary focus not only emphasizes the centrality of spaces and places when disentangling the complexities comprising our past and present, but also suggests a more pluralistic approach for exploring fundamental concepts in future spaces and places studies.
Chapter 1. How Public Participation Can Lead to the Placemaking of Space and Resilience of Place; Nakul Nitin Gote and Wolfgang Wende
Chapter 2. Al-Tahrir Square, Cairo During 2011. From Undefined Space to Interactive Place; Khaled I. Nabil
Chapter 3. Imprisonment of Public Space; Esra Akbalık
Chapter 4. Kuwait National Assembly Building: The Holy Assembly; Anas Alomaim and Dana Alhasan
Chapter 5. Place Before Form, People Before Profit: Reclaiming Venues of Art and Culture in the Midst of Tourism-Centred Reimaging of Cities; Sami Chohan
Chapter 6. Power, Cosmopolitanism, and Socio-Spatial Division in the Commercial Arena in Victorian and Edwardian London; Elisabete Mendes Silva
Chapter 7. “A Place Perfectly Accordant with Man’s Nature”: Violent Spaces in the Fiction of Thomas Hardy; Olivia Krauze
Chapter 8. Rising Cittagna(s): A Dialogue between Literature and Urbanism in Contemporary (Post-)Pastoral Cityscapes; Stefano Rozzoni
Chapter 9. Re-Wilding my Garden and Community Activities; Angela Specht
Stefano Rozzoni researches Transcultural Studies in Humanities at the University of Bergamo, Italy, and Literary and Cultural Studies at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany.
Beitske Boonstra is researcher, teacher, and scientific coordinator at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Department of Public Administration and Sociology.
Teresa Cutler-Broyles has an MA in Cultural Theory and an MA certification in Architectural Historical Preservation. She teaches Film and Cultural Theory at the University of New Mexico, USA, and Food Studies in Perugia, Italy.