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Multiple Spatialities and Social Inequalities: Refiguration, Locality, and Differentiation.

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: 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.

Source: Social Science Open Access Repository (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)

DOI: 10.12759/hsr.51.2026.01

Authors: Griesi, Elettra, Norkus, Maria, Perez Gnavi, Esteban, Baur, Nina, Kirchner, Stefan

Language: English

Topic: Spatial and Cultural Studies

Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W7140322695

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