A geographical turn

The relevance of space in human life is increasing. The point of equilibrium between constraint and freedom has moved. Individuals have become actors of their own spatiality as well as of the spatiality of others. Social actors must develop an explicit competence in and accountability for spatial issues. At the same time, geography and the social sciences of space have also changed. They have become more interactive and more intricate. A renewed resource has been discovered in philosophy. Political and economic stakeholders' knowledge, as well as urban and territorial planners' expertise have been mobilised. These two components are converging towards a third one, the growing pressure on scientists to produce analyses of and insight into the spatial dimension of society. The conjunction of those three elements can be referred to as the "geographical turn".