Vom Behälter zum Netzwerk?

Raum in mikrohistorischer Perspektive

Abstract

The ‘spatial turn’ in the social and cultural sciences has emphasised two aspects of our notion of space: first, space as a product of social and cultural practices (in contrast to space as a determining factor); second, space as an inter-related network (in contrast to space as a container). Microhistory offers a well-suited toolbox for putting praxeological and relational theories of space into research practice. From this perspective, the essay outlines a research design which comprises a bundle of inter-connected local microhistories. The author exemplifies this ‘trans-territorial microhistory’ by the emergence of a globalised agro-food chain from soybean production to pork consumption in the twentieth century.