Thinking of Space Relationally

Since the spatial and relational turns in the social sciences, it has become self-evident that one needs to combat methodological universalism and nationalism and explain the constitution of space relationally. Following the sociology of knowledge approach, Xiaoxue Gao takes relational spatial theories as `travelling conceptual knowledge', distinguishes them, and reflects on the `epistemic fallacy' which arises from re-contextualising them uncritically in studying contemporary urban space in China. Taking Critical Realism as a meta-theory, this book offers a methodology which leaps productively from causal hypotheses in plural travelling theories to explanations of locally observable events. It is exemplified in interrogating the poly-contextual formation of the artworld in Beijing as a conjunctive multiplicity.

Xiaoxue Gao (Dr. phil.), born in 1987, is post-doc at the Institute of Architecture at Technical University of Berlin. She did her doctorate at TU Berlin, at the chair of planning and architecture sociology. Prior to that, Xiaoxue gained her bachelor's in urban planning from Tianjin University and master's in human geography from Peking University. She engages in practice of urban planning and art criticism. Her research interests lie in urban studies with a focus on counterculture space and cross-cultural research methods.