& raquo;Die wandelnde Zeitlichkeit des lokalen Quick Commerce in Indien: Lieferarbeiter*innen und der post-pandemische Alltagsleben & laquo;. This article examines the significance of the post-pandemic 10-minute guaranteed delivery model of quick commerce in reconfiguring spatiality and temporality through mediatised network spaces in urban metropolitan Indian cities by disrupting conventional models of economic and territorial space and dynamics in the social field. Using ethnographic data, it demonstrates the significance of the technologically driven mediatised "darkstore to consumer" quick commerce in reconfiguring the fluidity of network spaces, spatiality, and temporality in urban India. It highlights the resulting layered simultaneity of enhancing the affective and temporal urban network space for the urban quick commerce customers while reconfiguring the precarious urban labour practices embedded within these network spaces along the existing fissures of social inequality for the delivery workers.
& raquo;Verflechtungen zwischen der Re-figuration europ & auml;ischer Territorialr & auml;ume und dem Rekrutierungsmanagementder saisonalenArbeitsmigration & laquo;. Against the background of the EU's eastward enlargement project, this article examines the role of Germany's political and economic relations with Poland and Romania in the recruitment of seasonal labour in the German agricultural sector. The article shows how EU's macro-territorial processes go hand in hand with transformations of the legal framework for labour recruitment, following a pattern that is repeated with each new accession of a candidate country. Drawing on theories of migration infrastructure for recruitment, the article analyses how the latter contributes to the formation and refiguration of spatial arrangements that prove fundamental to the stabilisation of the agrifood sector and its associated labour migration regimes. At the same time, it shows how macro-territorial processes accentuate power imbalances between the Western EU countries and the new member states.
& raquo;Die r & auml;umliche Vielfalt des Lokalen. Erkenntnisse aus dem Zusammenspiel von Wohnungsm & auml;rkten und Politik & laquo;. Referring to something as local implies that we can identify its location and position in the world. It might not be a self-sufficient entity, but a meaningful unitwith an air of singularity. Contrastingly, a phenomenon described as global is either not quite locatable, bounded, or only definable over vast connections and interdependencies. Many authors have pointed out the multiple interrelations between global and local and the shifting logics of scale. Looking at the intersection of housing markets and politics, this contribution sheds light on the complex interdependencies between the local as an identifiable place and territory, but at the same time connected through a multitude of networks and routes. Because of its material boundedness and phenomenal ubiquity, housing is an empirically and theoretically extremely helpful example to unravel the complexities of the local as multiple spatialities.
& raquo;Grenzged & auml;chtnisse und die Refiguration wirtschaftlicherBeziehun-gen. Eine vergleichende Studie zweier Zwillingsst & auml;dte in Europa & laquo;. This paper explores the relationship between border memories and the socio-spatial re-figuration of cross-border economic relations in European twin cities. Using the case studies of Guben/Gubin on the German-Polish border and Rheinfelden/Rheinfelden on the German-Swiss border, we analyse how practices of remembering and forgetting, along with their materialisations, influence economic dynamics and spatial arrangements. Drawing on the theoretical framework of spatial figures, we conceptualise border memories as sociospatial phenomena that shape and are shaped by economic activities. The study focuses on the spatial figure of place as a key logic through which border memories are embedded in socio-economic practices. In Guben/Gubin, industrial production plays a central role in shaping cross-border interactions, while in Rheinfelden/Rheinfelden, the energy sector underscores economic interdependence. These twin towns illustrate how border memories inform place identities and, in turn, establish the conditions for cross-border economic relations. Memory frames, memory practices, and memory materialities serve as crucial elements in this dynamic process, linking the past with contemporary economic interactions. Through a comparative analysis of these case studies, the paper highlights both the differences and commonalities in how border memories influence economic relationships and spatial refiguration. By identifying the socio-spatial processes that underpin remembering and forgetting in these contexts, the study provides transferable insights into the role of memory in shaping economic border regions.
& raquo;Neue r¨iche Arrangements f & uuml;r das Familienleben? Transaktionskosten f & uuml;r Pflege, Bildung und Mobilit&t in neuen Vorstadtwohngebieten & laquo;. As cities exploit the potential for inner-city densification and curb unsustainable peripheral expansion, creating new inner-city living spaces becomes more challenging. Since 2010, there has been a resurgence in suburban living and planning actions. The paper examines the spatial strategies used in recent suburban expansions aimed at providing an "ideal" suburban setting for today's family life through master design planning and infrastructure development. Modern suburban planning of housing districts integrates multifunctional hubs and aims to provide more sustainable mobility solutions. At the same time, it continues to echo earlier patterns, such as single-use zoning and residential-centric designs. Building on debates surrounding refiguration of spaces, we analyse how suburban planning reflects and perpetuates spatial inequalities, stabilizing traditional socio-economic structures while introducing incremental changes. By linking spatial arrangements to economic activities, this study highlights tensions between stability and change, emphasizing the persistence of territorial and network spatial logics alongside emerging concepts like the "15-Minute City." The findings underline the importance of addressing the socio-economic impacts of spatial arrangements in planning research and design. This paper contributes to discussions on spatial inequalities and refiguration by illustrating how suburban planning practice stabilizes spatial and economic practices only fora very limited number of families that live according to a specific family model.
& raquo;Erfahrungen der Ortslosigkeit: Neue & Uuml;berlegungen zu queeren & Ouml;konomien und allt & auml;gliche Ausgrenzungen in S & uuml;dkorea & laquo;. This paper explores queer placelessness in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA), South Korea. While recent studies reinterpret placelessness as a positive phenomenon, this research foregrounds the persistent struggles of queer residents navigating commercial districts that serve as both spaces of identification and exclusion. Drawing on interviews with 26 LGBTQIA+ participants of diverse gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, financial situations, and ages, this study reveals that while placelessness is a shared experience, its causes and dimensions vary. Using an intersectional approach, it confirms that gender and economic power shape these experiences in intersection with age and mental health. It argues that queer placelessness is not a transitional phase but a socially constructed, intersectional struggle constituting queer ontology. Examining Seoul's gaybourhoods, the study highlights their role in rights projects while addressing their limitations. This perspective reassesses critiques of Euro-American gaybourhoods as neoliberal spaces, expanding discussions on queer economies.
& raquo;Die n & auml;chtlichen R & auml;ume von Dakar, Senegal, Neukonfigurationen im Spiegel der Zeitlichkeit & laquo;. Spaces are often considered material objects through which their morphologies, or the interactions that make them unique, can be understood. They reveal the challenges and the multiple forms of spatialization of the society that produces them. Shaped by those who inhabit them, they allow for spatialities and territorialize activities, which are illustrated by the modes of diffusion. Reconfigurations are typically examined from a spatial perspective, which obscures the role of temporality. The interplay among actors who print variations and redeploy centralities remains under-explored. Dakar, located in Senegal, is a city that experiences a surge in activity during nocturnal hours, with a vibrant blend of leisure, work, and mobility. The city's advancement in lighting technology has played a significant role in enhancing its nighttime ambiance and safety. Through direct field observation, this study explores the "night of Dakar" to detect the spatial elements that reconfigure the nocturnal environment. The results show spatialities linked to dominant night-time activities such as transportation, commerce, and leisure. They also reveal a multicentric city with an asymmetrical distribution of centres and peripheries.
& raquo;Feldtheorie, Wirtschaft und Raum. Ein ,Sozialer Raum/Feld'-Ansatz & laquo;. Are spatial transformations, such as the decline of former industrial regions in Western Europe, direct consequences of economic structural and cyclical shifts? What mechanisms drive the visible spatial dynamics that reorganize and polarize production chains? And how can we best analyse the interdependence between physical space and economic processes? To address these questions, this article develops a theoretical framework built on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of social space and fields. We illustrate this framework with examples from diverse socio-historical contexts, drawing on Bourdieu and Sayad's research in colonial Algeria and France as well as Bourdieu's analysis of the housing market in The Social Structures of the Economy. We argue that social space and its dynamics constitute the central mechanism linking economic inputs-such as organizational and technological innovation or growth patterns-to spatial processes, like the rise of booming cities or the rapid decline of specific regions.
& raquo;Die Regulierung endet am Interface. Eine digital Mixed-Methods Studie vonAirbnb Marktstrukturen in Berlin und Kapstadt & laquo;. Airbnb has become the go-to platform for digitally mediated short-term rentals. This entails marketplaces in very different locales. There is still little knowledge on how these specific contexts influence local Airbnb marketplaces. In this paper we explore the influence of local contexts, exemplified by contrasting regulatory approaches, on the principles structuring Airbnb markets in Berlin and Cape Town. We draw on the refiguration of spaces framework to analyse the sociospatial interplay between cities and digital marketplaces. Utilising an innovative digital mixed-methods approach combining traditional and computational methods, the papershows thatAirbnb manages to encapsulate its market places, shielding it from regulatory influence that might have negative impacts on the transactions taking place on the platform. Still, local governments are able to shape market activity by shaping hosts' perceptions of their hosting practices and introducing barriers for market entries.
& raquo;Von Arbeitsmigrant:innen zu zuk & uuml;nftigen Einwander:innen? & bdquo;Gastarbeiter"-Programme im heutigen Taiwan und in Westdeutschland nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg & laquo;. This paper examines the divergence of "guest worker" migration regimes in contemporary Taiwan and postwar West Germany. Both countries sought foreign temporary workers to do "3D" jobs, but their "guest worker" programs followed distinct paths. In West Germany, family migration from Southern Europe and Turkey was allowed, leading numerous migrants to eventually settle. In contrast, Taiwan tightly controlled the stays of SoutheastAsian migrants until 2022, when it introduced a limited "long-term retention program" for "middle-skilled" workers. Explanations for regional variations in Western European and East Asian labor migration regimes typically focus on state-supported ethnonationalism and developmental ideologies. In contrast, we propose a multiscalar argument that identifies four socio-spatial factors that contribute to the persistence or transformation of "guest worker" regimes: trajectories of industrial development, demand for female migrant workers, geography and border enforcement, and recruitment infrastructure. We also examine factors related to social space that may affect the future course of Taiwan's labor migration program, includingthe spatial allocation of migrant workers, competition with other receiving countries, and the consolidation of migrant communities.
& raquo;Multiple Raumanordnungen und soziale Ungleichheiten: Refiguration, Lokalit & auml;tundDifferenzierung & laquo;. Contemporary social inequalities present analytical challenges that traditional frameworks struggle to address. This HSR Special Issue argues that social inequalities are better understood through multiple spatialities-the simultaneous operation of territorial, networked, route-based, and place-based spatial figures creating complex inequality patterns. Using the refiguration approach, the paper examines how infrastructures, mobility regimes, and economic systems generate social inequalities through differentiation processes. This framework resists container-based, deterministic, and scalar perspectives by proposing a relational approach addressing the simultaneity of spatial logics. The analysis provides tools for understanding how social inequalities are locally embedded but globally connected, and how they might be reproduced, resisted, or refigured.
In this article, the prevailing assumption that the socio-economic advancement of a so-called global middle class would be accompanied by a decline in traditional value orientations is contested. I will show that for wealthier residents of Nairobi, the orientation towards traditional forms of housing and the associated values are gainingsig-nificance. However, traditional values are more likely to be rejected by Nairobians who are threatened by downward mobility. I argue that it seems functional for city dwellers with fewer economic and spatial resources to reject the demands of a traditional "economy of symbolic goods" (Bourdieu). If the resources to meet these expectations are lacking, traditional obligations towards the "ancestral home" are often ironized or rejected. In contrast to the income-based interpretation of the discourse of a supposed global middle class, I will use Wacquant's adaptation of Bourdieu's spatial sociology to demonstrate how value orientations of subjects are structured by the spatial dimensions of their housing conditions. In addition to the well-established critique of the economistic definition of an alleged global middle class, this analysis along social, symbolic, and physical spaces offers a more nuanced understanding of why traditional loyalties are currently criticized by Kenyans who feel cheated out of their promise of upward mobility, rather than by the saturated parts of society.
Re-Figuration der R & uuml;ckkehr. Halbwegs-R & uuml;ckkehrmigration in die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate & laquo;.Halfway-return migration refers to an emi-grant's return from a distant country to the broader geographical region from which they originated, rather than the specific country they were born and raised in. The ideal-typical halfway-return destination is more geographically and culturally proximate to the emigrant's origin country than their previous overseas destination, while also offering a higher standard of living and bet-ter career opportunities than what is available in the emigrant's origin coun-try. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 48 high-skilled multinational mi-grants from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia who previously lived in the West or East Asia, we find that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fulfils all four criteria for a halfway-return destination for migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA), but not for Sub-Saharan African mi-grants. These findings demonstrate the need to "re-figure" our understand-ing of return migration to move beyond the methodological nationalism of assuming the origin country is the only home a migrant can "return" to. Ra-ther than the traditional territorial logic, we suggest using alternative logics of return migration, in making a destination feel like an idealized home
& raquo;Jenseits der EU als Ma ss stab: Die Rolle informeller, grenz & uuml;berschreitender Mobilit & auml;t and Arbeit f & uuml;r regionale Freiz & uuml;gigkeit & laquo;. Free movement frameworks in regional economic communities across the world are often evaluated using the European Union asa benchmark. However, this EU-centric lens overlooks diverse regional contexts and the crucial role of informal cross-border circulation and migrant labour. This article analyses free movement regimes in Mercosur and ECOWAS, drawing on 58 interviews with government and civil society stakeholders. It examines how informal circulation and labour, often compensating for policy gaps, are not exceptions but central to these frameworks, reflecting historical, normative, and economic regional contexts for human mobility. Policymakers tolerate or even encourage informality for pragmatic and normative reasons, with attitudes varying based on context and perceived risks, resulting in trends of spatial convergence and divergence. Integrating regionalism theories and the autonomy of migration perspective, while acknowledging the artificiality of colonial borders, the article argues that informality drives free movement and challenges hierarchical comparisons with the European Union. By reframing informality as a constitutive element of free movement, it offers a broader, context-sensitive understanding of (in)formal free movement regimes in the Global South.
& raquo;Der Raum des Baz & amacr;r: Ort, Wirtschaft und & Uuml;berleben in einer s & uuml;dasi-atischen Stadt & laquo;.The word baz & amacr;r, derived from Persian, has at least two conno-tations in South Asia:spatial and systemic. Firstly, it may mean a marketplace, whether architecturally planned or informal, where the business of buying and selling goods is conducted through person-to-person transactions. Secondly, in colonial India, the term acquired the larger economic sense of the indigenous money market which financed the wholesale and forward trade over the longer distances in British India. In the first application of the term, the physical phe-nomenon being describedis common over the whole of South, South-East,and Central Asia and extends up to western Asia and North Africa. Notable examples of baz & amacr;rsmay be encountered not only in South Asia but in cities on the Silk Route, in Tashkent and Samarqand,andin Istanbul and Cairo. It is in this sense that the term has entered English andinhabits both a spatial and a specular economy. But in the second meaning, the "native" baz & amacr;rfunctions in parallel to, though it is conceptually distinct from, the "western" market. It is a specific set of commercial relations which fixes the rates (the baz & amacr;rrate) at which com-modities are bought and sold in a vast interrelated chain of transactions all over the country. In this paper, I examine Barabaz & amacr;r, a physical, spatial example of a pre-colonial baz & amacr;rin the city of Kolkata, India, which also demonstrates the functioning of the baz & amacr;reconomy.
>> R & auml;umliche Refiguration an den Ressourcengrenzen: Das Zusammenspiel von Infrastruktur und M & auml;rkten in derZentralregion Chiles <<. The economy of Chile's central region has historically been based on agricultural production. Its Mediterranean climate, the connectivity provided by the Pan-American Highway, and its proximity to metropolitan areas have all been critical factors in the persistence of the agricultural tradition. More recently, the export-oriented logic pushed by the state during the neoliberal era has intensified the region's economic vocation as a producer of commodities such as food and timber. However, over the past 30 years, changing global market demands and climatic conditions have triggered various actions and reactions on the part of producers, with varied spatial and economic effects. Drawing on the notion of the expansion of resource and commodity frontiers, this paper focuses on the cases of the O'Higgins and Maule regions toexamine how infrastructure (in the form of roads, trans-mission lines, and reservoirs), climate variability, and economic conditions are driving spatial refiguration in resource frontiers.
>> Maritime Logistik und Arbeitsregime als Infrastrukturen der Akkumulation <<. This paper seeks to connect and advance arguments made in our 2021 book Capitalism and the Sea (Verso) by addressing the problematic of spatial refigurations in economic sociology through the prism of maritime shipping and its accompanying labour regimes. Conceived of as terraqueous infrastructures of accumulation in motion, we first develop an account of maritime logistics as an expression of infrastructure that is generative of capitalist planning and articulates uneven development, (post)colonial and imperial relations of domination and subordination, and dynamics of concentration and centralisation in highly differentiated shipping industries. We then, secondly, set in relation this historical geography of maritime logistics to explore the labour regimes that make such movement possible. We underline the distinctiveness of maritime labour regimes to highlight structural obstacles to solidarity within and across spaces and places.
>> ZurSoziologie derInfrastruktur: Multiple Spatialities, Experimentalismus und medizinische Drohnen in Malawi <<. In this article, I explore the ways in which conflicts over space-whether as a scarce resource, a venue of performative practices, or a bounded territory to be managed-are shaped through infrastructural networks and provision. By infrastructure I mean the sociotechnical apparatuses that enable, shape, limit, and govern the circulation of goods, energy, knowledge, and capital. Empirically, I focus on the introduction of drones in Malawi's healthcare system and emerging conflicts between different logistical providers. The article is based on the observation that spaces and infrastructural networks mutually shape and stabilize one another. At the same time, these techno-spatial configurations can be located at different scales, which they crisscross, and along diver-gent spatial formats and spatial orders, thereby producing multiple, materially mediated spatialities. The article examines the conflicts that underpin and emerge from these multiple spatialities and pays special attention to the ways in which they can be construed from the perspective of the sociology of infrastructure.
>> Der India Stack-Zwischen vernetztem Wachstum und territorialer Kontrolle <<. In recent years, India's digital economy has developed into a global player for Internet services and is considered a key growth market for international technology companies. As a basis for its digital leadership claims, India is pursuing its own approach to digital infrastructure with the India Stack, the largest biometric data and instant payment system in the world, which is related to historical digital sovereignty claims and imaginations of space, infrastructure, and privacy. This article aims to reconstruct the conflictual multistakeholder Internet governance discourse in India regarding the India Stack and to examine it against the background of a spatial sociological perspective of the global changes of the Internet under the term of refiguration (1). After a brief review of the emergence of the Internet in India against the backdrop of the digital network economy (2), the text looks at the discourses and spatial imaginaries associated with the India Stack, which are centered around the concepts of access, empowerment, and privacy (3). This reveals the specific regional figuration of India's infrastructure logics, which are shaped between territorial and digital sovereignty claims and dependencies on globalized network economies (4).
>> Die Neugestaltung der Stadtr & auml;nder von Nairobi: Von den kolonialen Grenzen zu den j & uuml;ngsten st & auml;dtischen Grenzen des Wachstums <<. This article ex-plores the historical and socio-spatial transformation of Kasarani (location), a peri-urban settlement in North-Eastern Nairobi, tracing its evolution from a colonial frontier to its contemporary status as an urban growth frontier. Situ-atingKasarani within broader processes of urbanization and economic devel-opment, the study highlights the interplay between historical path and space dependencies, structural dynamics of the capitalist world system, and local-izedurban practices. Using the lens of urban fragmentation, it investigates how economic, political, and ecological inequalities manifest spatially, shap-ing Kasarani into a heterogeneous and contested urban landscape. The dis-trict's development trajectory reveals the dual forces of socio-spatial stability and transformation, driven by colonial land appropriation, decolonization, and infrastructure-led urban expansion. By analysing these processes, the ar-ticle provides new insights into how historical legacies and modern growth strategies converge to reshape Nairobi's urban periphery, highlighting the complex and evolving spatialities of urban transformation.
