Teaching «Spatial Turn»: Why to Whom and Together With Whom?

Article

Abstract

[In Russian]

In disciplinary terms, the spatial turn results from the inter-
action between geography, sociology, and, increasingly, history,
and aims at renewing the theoretical frames of these disciplines
beyond nation-states by positing and questioning the global scale
as a possible general theoretical level. It originated as a re-reading
of the classics (Karl Marx, Henry Lefebvre, Michele Foucault) by
such geographers as David Harvey, Ed Soja, and Doreen Massey
in search for the concepts and ideas with which to grasp both the
mutually shaping force of spatial and social relations, processes
and forms and the increasing multidimensionality of space. e
article tries to show that, in the context of higher education, these
developments invite careful re¦ection of possible ways in which
‘where-ness’ of things and people can be discussed in the class-
room. In particular, the author argues that various genealogies of
the spatial turn are possible and, given the ‘path-dependence’ of
the regional higher education system on selected strands of the
western theories which became available during the last twenty
years, it is Michele Foucault’s spatial thought that merits par-
ticular attention. e notion of ‘conceptual disciplining’ is intro-
duced in order to identify the sources of on-going tensions among
the schools of thoughts, disciplines, and intellectual traditions
variously engaged in or related to the spatial turn.