This book ​explores the importance of freedom and liberalism in the context of socialities, individualities and materialities. The authors provide a highly unusual and innovative blending of concepts about space and landscape through a deeply theoretical exploration of liberalism.Liberalism is often problematized in contemporary discussions with regard to gentrification, environmental problems and inequality. In contrast, this book refers to a liberalism that maximizes life chances in the context of dealing with spaces. A connection between freedom and space, based on liberal ideas,...

This book is oriented on testing and developing the neopragmatic approach of horizontal geographies, in which we follow approaches of natural sciences, social sciences, and cultural studies. Regional focus is thereby put on a rapidly changing elemental space and its social representations, characterized by unstable and not well-defined hybridities: coastal Louisiana. This region is highly dynamic: the Mississippi River in particular, with its extensive sediments, has shifted the coastal fringe of present-day Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico. This land gain is contrasted by natural processes,...

Der Sammelband hat zum Ziel, die vielfältigen Verflechtungen zwischen Landschaft und Tourismus aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln zu beleuchten und zu reflektieren. Er stützt sich auf ein Verständnis von Landschaft als eine individuelle Konstruktion auf Grundlage erlernter gesellschaftlicher Deutungs- und Bewertungsmuster, auf Basis derer eine synthetische Zusammenschau materieller Objekte erfolgt. Alle drei Dimensionen sind veränderlich (die materielle, die individuelle und die gesellschaftliche) und über das Individuum miteinander verbunden. Die Gestaltung und Veränderung von...

In the face of great challenges, utopian thinking is currently in vogue. The fact that utopias, with their ideas of an idealized target society, are not compatible with the basic features of an Open Society was already pointed out by Karl Popper in his book 'Die Offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde' (The Open Society and its Enemies) under the impression of National Socialism and Stalinism. In the present book, further forms of Closed Societies and the principal similarities (and differences) of their construction are examined. This is done by drawing on Ralf Dahrendorf's concept of life...

This book provides a broad view on multisensory landscapes from multiple perspectives.It includes theoretical perspectives as well as case studies. Different theoretical perspectives on landscape emerging from research in the last decades also require a differentiated approach to landscape phenomena, going beyond the visual. For example, a social constructivist approach to the social world foregrounds the processes of negotiating social ‚realities‘. This is not limited to visual aspects, and is not based on a clear physical measurability with an accompanying (purely quantitative)...

This book addresses the highly differentiated spatial, social, cultural and demographic structure(s) of Germany, with a particular focus on the reciprocal relations between different levels of spatial development.The historical development of Germany serves as a background in order to provide context for the development of spatially relevant ideas and ideals (whether in relation to politics, landscape, or culture). In this regard, questions of divergence and convergence become highly salient.The book makes the complexity of spatial and social developments in Germany comprehensible. The...