ABSTRACT
In the light of some of the recent globalisation debates and their respective theoretical frameworks, modern ways of life seem to be less spatially bound and borders more permeable due to increased global mobility and the everpresent electronic media. Concepts such as ‘deterritorialisation’ (Held et al. 1999), ‘space-time compression’ (Harvey 1989), and ‘mobility’ in its various forms (Appadurai 1996) invoke a world of fl ux in which the individual is in transit. In contrast, these accounts of globalisation are challenged by other approaches which emphasize the prevailing signifi cance of space by drawing attention to the process’ inherent ‘inequality’ (Allen and Hamnett 1995), ‘reterritorialisation’ tendencies (Sassen 1998) which appear simultaneously with deterritorialisation, and the still widespread nationalism (Anderson 1991) as part of, or existing alongside, the globalisation process. Thus, generally, it can be noted that the importance of space for people’s ‘being in the world’ today is increasingly called into question.
