The Sociology of Space and Its Pioneers
Abstract
The sociology of space has so far made important contributions to the development of social theories, especially the study of urban society, public space, and urban planning. This paper discusses some of the pioneers of the sociology of space, the social reality in which they live that influences their spatial imagination, and their written works. This type of research is a literature review in the form of tracing sources through the review of books, articles, and other types of scientific works. The results showed that there are several people who are famous as pioneers of this type of sociology, namely: Georg Simmel, Michael Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Manuel Castells, Edward Soja, Martina Low, and Doreen Massey. Each of these pioneers, either separately or together, gave a distinctive color to the study of sociology using the auxiliary sciences of geography and architecture. The discussion of the pioneering figures of the sociology of space will also facilitate readers in the theoretical categorization process of who influenced what figures and was influenced by whose figures as “narrators”.
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Van Wezemael, J. (2016). Urban governance and social complexity. In A Planner’s Encounter with Complexity (pp. 283–308). Routledge.
Adams, P. C., & Jansson, A. (2012). Communication geography: A bridge between disciplines. Communication Theory, 22(3), 299–318.
Ahmadin, A., Sanur, I. S., & Nur, R. J. (2025). Review of public space studies in Indonesia: Research identification and future social agenda. Journal of Water and Land Development, 136–147.
Ahmadin, M. (2022). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Jurnal Kajian Sosial Dan Budaya: Tebar Science, 6(1), 104–113.
Asbury, F. R. (2017). Reorientations: an examination of Black Lives Matter and the neoliberal spectacle.
Biagi, F. (2020). Henri Lefebvre’s critical theory of space. Springer.
Castells, M. (2024). Advanced introduction to digital society. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2009). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Mit Press.
Castillo Ulloa, I., Heinrich, A. J., Million, A., & Schwerer, J. (2024). The Evolution of Young People’s Spatial Knowledge. Taylor & Francis.
Castree, N. (2019). David Harvey. In Sage Research Methods Foundations. Sage Publications Ltd.
Das, R. J. (2017). David Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development: A Marxist critique. Capital & Class, 41(3), 511–536.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2014). Skillful coping: Essays on the phenomenology of everyday perception and action. OUP Oxford.
During, S. (2020). Foucault and literature: Towards a genealogy of writing. Routledge.
Eckstein, H. (1992). Regarding politics: Essays on political theory, stability, and change. Univ of California Press.
Elden, S., & Crampton, J. W. (2012). Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Ethington, P. J. (1997). The intellectual construction of" Social Distance": Toward a recovery of Georg Simmel’s social geometry. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography.
Fainstein, S. S. (2017). Urban planning and social justice. In The Routledge handbook of planning theory (pp. 130–142). Routledge.
Fitzi, G. (2021). The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Fuller, M. G., & Löw, M. (2017). Introduction: An invitation to spatial sociology. Current Sociology, 65(4), 469–491.
Harvey, D. (2008). Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary theory in geography and the problem of ghetto formation. In Geographic Thought (pp. 13–22). Routledge.
Harvey, D. (2010). Social justice and the city (Vol. 1). University of Georgia press.
Hess, A., & Hess, A. (2001). The city and human ecology: the urban sociology of the Chicago school (Robert Park and William Burgess). Concepts of Social Stratification: European and American Models, 70–78.
Jørgensen, A., & Smith, D. (2008). The Chicago School of Sociology. Encountering the Everyday: An Introduction to the Sociologies of the Unnoticed, 45.
Kasprisin, R. (2019). Urban design: the composition of complexity. Routledge.
Kipfer, S., & Goonewardena, K. (2013). Urban Marxism and the post-colonial question: Henri Lefebvre and ‘colonisation.’ Historical Materialism, 21(2), 76–116.
Knoblauch, H., & Löw, M. (2017). On the spatial re-figuration of the social world. Sociologica, 11(2), 0.
Knoblauch, H., & Löw, M. (2021). Comparison, refiguration, and multiple spatialities. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 22(3).
Kriswandi, F. K., Wardani, G. W., Rahmadani, S. R., Prayoga, V. S., & Harta, J. F. S. H. S. (2024). Sawer on Eid al-Fitr Fitri Perspective Michel Foucault’s theory. GIC Proceeding, 2, 182–188.
Kühne, O. (2018). Landscape and power in geographical space as a social-aesthetic construct. Springer.
Lane, S. N. (2001). Constructive comments on D Massey ‘Space‐time,“science” and the relationship between physical geography and human geography: rsquo. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 26(2), 243–256.
Leary-Owhin, M. E., & McCarthy, J. P. (2019). The Routledge handbook of Henri Lefebvre, the city and urban society. Routledge.
Li, J., Liu, Q., He, H., & Li, R. (2020). Differentiation and Conflict of the Network Absence Space. Third International Conference on Social Science, Public Health and Education (SSPHE 2019), 162–167.
Löw, M. (2012). The intrinsic logic of cities: towards a new theory on urbanism. Urban Research & Practice, 5(3), 303–315.
Löw, M. (2013). Soziologie der Städte. Suhrkamp Verlag.
Macey, D. (2004). Michel Foucault. Reaktion Books.
Marshall, J. D. (2013). Michel Foucault: Personal autonomy and education (Vol. 7). Springer Science & Business Media.
Massey, D. (1995). Spatial divisions of labour: Social structures and the geography of production. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Meegan, R. (2017). Doreen Massey (1944–2016): a geographer who really mattered. In Regional Studies (Vol. 51, Issue 9, pp. 1285–1296). Taylor & Francis.
Melo, M. G. P. de. (2024). The downfall of certainty: the crisis of rationality and science in the writings of Henri Lefebvre, a first approach. Nova Economia, 34(spe1), e8594.
Middleton, S. (2013). Henri Lefebvre and education: Space, history, theory. Routledge.
Neal, J. P. (2010). Rethinking Representations of Health and Disease: Foucault, Canguilhem, and the US Center for Disease Control Reports on AIDS.
Olivier, B. (2013). Time (s), space (s) and communication in Castells’s’ Network Society’. Communicare: Journal for Communication Sciences in Southern Africa, 32(2), 20–39.
Peck, J. (2025). Open horizons: Doreen Massey’s geographies. In Making Geography Matter (pp. 132–150). Routledge.
Pullan, B. (1988). The conversion of the Jews: the style of Italy. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 70(1), 53–70.
Rammstedt, O. (1994). Georg Simmel. Soziologie: Journal of the Deutsche Gesellschaft Für Soziologie, 103–113.
Ren, X., & Keil, R. (2018). The globalizing cities reader. Routledge London, UK.
Royce, E. (2015). Classical social theory and modern society: Marx, Durkheim, Weber. Rowman & Littlefield.
Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science. American Library Association.
Sampaio, J. (2005). Afterword: The Network Society and the Knowledge Economy: Portugal in the Global Perspective. The Network Society From Knowledge to Policy, 425.
Sanyal, B. (2005). Comparative planning cultures. Routledge.
Sapouna, L. (2012). Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. OXFORD UNIV PRESS GREAT CLARENDON ST, OXFORD OX2 6DP, ENGLAND.
Schindel, E., & Colombo, P. (2014). Space and the memories of violence: Landscapes of erasure, disappearance and exception. Springer.
Schmid, C. (2008). Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space: Towards a three-dimensional dialectic. In Space, difference, everyday life (pp. 41–59). Routledge.
Schmid, C. (2022). Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space. Verso Books.
Scott, A. J. (2012). A world in emergence: cities and regions in the 21st century. In A World in Emergence. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Scott, A. J., & Soja, E. W. (1996). The city: Los Angeles and urban theory at the end of the twentieth century. Univ of California Press.
Simmel, G. (2011). Georg Simmel on individuality and social forms. University of Chicago Press.
Simmel, G., Frisby, D., Bottomore, T., & Lemert, C. (2011). The philosophy of money. Routledge.
Soja, E. W. (2008). Taking space personally. In The spatial turn (pp. 27–51). Routledge.
Stabler, M. J., Papatheodorou, A., & Sinclair, M. T. (2009). The economics of tourism. Routledge.
Staudacher, C. (2023). Simmel’s sociology of time: On temporal coordination and acceleration. Time & Society, 32(2), 210–231.
Tilleczek, W. C. (2022). Powers of Practice: Michel Foucault and the Politics of Asceticism. Harvard University.
Tonkiss, F. (2005). Space, the city and social theory: Social relations and urban forms. Polity.
Van Wezemael, J. (2016). Urban governance and social complexity. In A Planner’s Encounter with Complexity (pp. 283–308). Routledge.
Published
2025-06-09
How to Cite
AHMADIN, Mr..
The Sociology of Space and Its Pioneers.
Jurnal Kajian Sosial dan Budaya: Tebar Science, [S.l.], v. 9, n. 2, p. 11-19, june 2025.
ISSN 2597-4114.
Available at: <http://www.ejournal.tebarscience.com/index.php/JKSB/article/view/208>. Date accessed: 21 oct. 2025.
doi: https://doi.org/10.36653/jksb.v9i2.208.
Section
Artikel Vol 9 No. 2 Mei-Agustus 2025
