Transit Spaces: (Dis)Connections and the Fluid Places In-Between

In recent years, digitalisation, increased mobility and globalisation have created new spatial dynamics. The places shaped by these dynamics are characterised by the transient movement of people and goods, overlapping networks and meshworks, blurred borders and a constant state of flexibility - physically and culturally. They are also politicised, divided along national and international territories, crossed by goods and people with local and global backgrounds.

As the relationship of people(s) to a place itself has changed, new types and categories of place emerge with shifting understandings of commons, public spaces and geographic characteristics.

A striking geographic example of these developments is the re-emergence of 'fluid spaces' as a phenomenon without boundaries. In this sense, waterways, ports, harbours, seas and oceans exemplify transit zones with no fixed nationality or belonging. They are marked by continually shifting meanings and relations of trespassing, transiting and dwelling.

What could a border region of the future in a context of fluid spaces look like? Could ports be considered as an incarnation of (new) socio-technological systems and thus, as the materialisation of digital ecosystems? The nature of transit spaces, their potentials and limits will be discussed with an international panel of interdisciplinary researchers.

PROGRAMME

Welcome
Miriam Mlecek, Programme Manager, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin
Sascha Suhrke, Director, Head of Politics and Society, ZEIT-Stiftung, Hamburg

Introduction
Benjamin Tallis, Senior Researcher, Institute of International Relations, Prague

Presentations
Kimberley Peters, Reader in Human Geography, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool
Nancy Couling, Architect and Researcher, Technical University Delft
Christian Bueger, Professor of International Relations, University of Copenhagen

Discussion with moderator and front-row peers

Moderation
Benjamin Tallis, Senior Researcher, Institute of International Relations, Prague

Front-Row Peers
Dagmar Pelger, Architect and Researcher, Technical University Berlin
Nadine Godehardt, Deputy Head of Research Division Asia, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin

BACKGROUND
Within the programme Borders and Territories: Identity in Place, ANCB aims to examine new spatial, geopolitical and cultural possibilities related to nations and people on our globe.

Regarding our new series of events on Transit Spaces and Translocalities: The new dynamics of connecting places, we consider that spaces of transit reflect problems caught between existing territorial claims and today’s global dynamics. In addition, transit spaces are linked to less physical/visible aspects of perception and heritage of place, including narrative, memory and re-emergence of dormant spaces such as borders, regions, cities, etc. The shift towards spatial reconfiguration of corridors, territories and translocalities becomes obvious in developments, such as the new silk road and global closure as promoted by many populist governments around the world. Furthermore, the rise of international migration and the increase in tourism adds to the dynamics of spaces. The concept of 'translocality' has also become an important approach for investigating the interaction and interconnectedness between places, institutions, actors and concepts across (multiple forms of) borders.