2014/01/01 by Nina Baur, Baur, Nina, Hering, Linda +4
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #GIS #Geographic Information Systems Studies #Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis #Land Use and Ecosystem Services #Spatial analysis #cartography #case studies #ethnography #maps #method #space #survey methodology #theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.39.2014.2.7-50
openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A main obstacle for integrating the methodological debates on spatial analysis in diverse social sciences and humanities (such as Sociology, Geography, History and Cultural Studies) is the lack of a common definition of research goals and theories of space. Starting from the discussion on absolute and relational space concepts as well as the observation that space is a multi-level-phenomenon consisting of different spatial layers which interact with time layers, the authors argue that all spatial problems can be categorized into one of five dimensions: (1) Thinking and Imagining Space; (2) Creating and Changing Space; (3) Experiencing, Appropriating and Orientating within Space; (4) (Inter)Action and Distribution within Space; and (5) Relations and Movements between Spaces. The authors discuss the contribution of various qualitative approaches (e.g. ethnography, case studies and discourse analysis), quantitative approaches (e.g. surveys, public administrational data and GIS) and cartographic approaches for analysing these dimensions and conclude with open questions for future research.