Understanding Social Change

Abstract

The chapter shows that the question of spaces can be an anchor point for understanding the meaning relations of social change. There are hardly any other phenomena that so clearly capture relational constellations. The author discusses two common approaches to understanding social change. First, the theoretical model is designed on the basis of the question of social order and social change is taken into account as a counter-dynamic. Second, social change is set as the normal case, and order formation in change is examined. Space is conceptualized in both approaches primarily as the on-site given, as the local conditions of action. Löw therefore proposes the concept of refiguration to describe social change. Refiguration as a process concept is also directed against the simple idea that social change is expressed in spaces. Instead, the movement and embodiment dynamics of refiguration are also and above all connected to the search movement for how the world changes in spatial interconnections and conflicts.

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