Co-organisation of PLATIAL’26 and three presentations
The International Symposium on Platial Information Science was co-initiated by René Westerholt in 2018 (together with Prof. Franz-Benjamin Mocnik, University of Salzburg) and has regularly been co-organised since then. This year, the PLATIAL’26 symposium took place in Salzburg, where it was hosted in the historic residence of the Prince-Bishops. This year’s theme was ‘Platial Information Practices Between Idealisation, Cliché, and Stigmatisation’. Under this thematic focus, a total of 20 short papers were presented, covering a wide range of place-related topics: from aspects of representation and mediation, through questions of semiotics and meaning, to issues of power and exclusion. In addition, two workshops were held, which addressed questions of place representation and an art-historical perspective on places. The two keynote speakers were Dr Andrea Ballatore (King’s College London) and Dr Alice Butler-Warke (University of Reading). Whilst Andrea Ballatore adopted a data science perspective on places, Alice Butler-Warke presented her latest sociological findings on the processes underlying the formation of stigmatised places. The programme was completed by two excursions: one to the Sattler Panorama, an idealised, 25-metre-long and 5-metre-high historical 360° representation of Salzburg; and another to the Salzburg Open-Air Museum, where the scientific director, Dr Michael Span, gave us an insightful guided tour on the interpretation and communication of historical places through real-world objects. Following the event, we have now also been able to publish the symposium proceedings, which run to more than 160 pages.
We would like to thank everyone involved for their contributions, which once again made this symposium a resounding success!
Please find the full proceedings here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23071588
Please find the editorial to our proceedings here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23071590
In addition to co-organising the symposium, our lab was also represented by three presentations:
Odonymic continuity and platial identity: the “glocal” street names of Attica, Greece
Authors: Seraphim Alvanides (TU Dortmund University) and Loukas Zonas (independent researcher)
Abstract: This article examines street names. We usually take street names for granted and rarely question their origins, let alone their legitimacy. Previous sociological, linguistic and geographical studies have focused on areas that have undergone political turmoil and territorial changes, leading to various breaks in the spatial and temporal continuity of street names. These breaks have been examined in depth, as they are reflected in the ideological fabric of cities.Very few studies have addressed the continuity of street names, the factors that resist change, and the potential implications for the spatial identity of the areas and their inhabitants. This contribution analyses two areas in the western and four areas in the eastern part of Attica (Greece), which are characterised by a very strong local political culture, which in turn is influenced by international and national events. The short paper concludes that the spatial structure of street names reflects historical events at the interface between the local and global levels, which transcend competing ideologies and lead to resilient spatial identities for the areas and their inhabitants.
Platial divergence in sacrifice zones: between governance-produced and experienced place
Author: Víctor Cobs-Muñoz (TU Dortmund University)
Abstract: Sacrifice zones are areas suffering from severe environmental degradation and social injustice, where the damage persists despite existing formal regulatory frameworks.
Research into place-based stigmatisation has shown how negative reputations are generated, consolidated, and perpetuated through processes of representation. This paper argues that ‘sacrifice zones’ embody a different form of spatial discrimination that has so far been inadequately captured in theory: Government institutions do not stigmatise the affected areas, but actively constitute them as governable objects through thresholds, plans, responsibilities, and categories, thereby making harm administratively manageable, whilst delegitimising the local population’s knowledge of the same area. ‘Spatial divergence’ is introduced in this contribution as a concept to denote the structural divide between these places created through governance and the places experienced, documented, and contested by the affected communities. Drawing on the critical-realist framework of environmental justice, the contribution demonstrates that four structural factors function as place-constituting operations in the real dimension. The argument is illustrated using the example of Quintero-Puchuncaví in Chile, and a mechanism-oriented research agenda is proposed.
A photographic look into place experience by depicting place settings: a case for photo elicitation
Author: Liudmila Slivinskaya (TU Dortmund University)
Abstract: This paper presents reflections on the use of a photo-supported interview method as part of an empirical study on the experience of place in a large housing estate. Walking interviews were conducted with long-term residents of the Marzahn estate in Berlin, and photographs taken by the residents were collected during the course of the walks. Participants were asked to take photos of physical environments associated with their activities in the respective lived places. Drawing on these experiences from conducting the empirical study, this paper presents conceptual and methodological considerations regarding the use of photographs as a means of discussing place-related activities, and shares observations on the joint interpretation of the photographs alongside the participants’ free-form responses. The paper sets out how experiences of place can be explored through visual representations of local environments, and how such representations can be methodologically soundly employed in in-depth qualitative studies of place experiences from a phenomenological perspective.