Society, Action and Space (PDF)

This book questions the relevance of space for the social world. It focuses upon issues which are at the centre of important debates in human/social geography. Over recent years one of the most significant developments in social analysis has been the increasing interchange between geographers, sociologists, anthropologists and social philosophers concerning `the spatial'. This debate involves the work of Giddens, Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, Harvey, Gregory, Soja and many others. As a result of these new developments a whole series of new forms of empirical work as well as theoretical innovations have come into being. Spatial considerations are no longer confined to the area of geography. Rather they are now seen as fundamental to all forms of social theorising, particularly in social conditions where spatially very distant events now effect everyone: under conditions of late modernity and globalization.
The distinctiveness of this book is that it connects discussions in the philosophy of social science with theories of action which have direct relevance to concepts of space. Werlen provides a discussion of Popper's critical rationalism, linking this with ideas drawn from phenomenology. This epistemological debate is linked with the sociological action theories of how `the spatial' can be systematically integrated into action theory.
The book offers exciting new directions for geography and sociology as `spatial sciences'. However, it insists that `space' in itself does not cause or explain anything. It only becomes meaningful in the context of action theory.