ABSTRACT
As one of the blind spots in sociology, the neglect of space is both prominent and instructive. While time has played a comparatively central role during the disciplinary history of sociology, space did not play as explicit and visible a role, nor did the category seem to be relevant for sociological research (Roy and Ahmed 2001). Indeed, even a cursory review of the sociological literature, especially during the decades following World War II, reveals research interests and practices that did not provide much room for space and place – as systematic concepts or legitimate research concerns.1 The area in sociology in which space played the most important role was urban sociology, whose origins date back to the 1920s and 1930s, and which experienced a rapid expansion during the 1970s and 1980s.2 Even though – or possibly, because – all sociologically relevant phenomena occur in space and time, for the vast majority of sociologists, space may have been too obvious a feature of human existence to warrant careful attention with regard to its potentially specific features and impact on social life. Since the implicitly presumed purpose of both theoretical and empirical research in sociology was the production of knowledge about conditions in all “civilized” and complex societies independently of, or rather, beyond space and time, concrete features that influence social forms in clearly delimited contexts were regarded as secondary (Dahms 2008). As a consequence, the history of sociology has been burdened by an odd paradox.
