Baton Rouge—A Neopragmatic Regional Geographic Approach

Olaf Kühne,Corinna Jenal

doi:10.3390/urbansci5010017

Abstract

The present contribution to a neopragmatic approach to regional geography attempts to collect, structure, and reflect knowledge with different spatial, social, and cultural references. This is not a matter of designing a classical regional or landscape “compartmentalization” of distinct spatial units, which are characterized by a specific reciprocal shaping of culture and the initial physical substrate, but of investigating and reflecting the reciprocal influences of different levels of scale as well as the construction mechanisms and contingency of spatial units. By means of “theoretical” and also empirical “triangulation”, a differentiated picture of complex research objects—here Baton Rouge, LA—is generated, whereby (partial) contradictions between theoretical approaches and the relationship between the various appropriately chosen theories and equally well-chosen empirical methods are also accepted.

Highlights

In discussing the “materialistic turn” and the theoretical framing of multi-methodological studies, an approach has been developed in recent years within German-speaking human geography and in the sociology of space that has become called “neopragmatic” [1,2,3]
The normative basis makes neopragmatism compatible with the political philosophy and sociology of the German-British philosopher Ralf Dahrendorf, who formulated the increase of individual “life chances” as a central social norm [20,21]: On the one hand, Ralf Dahrendorf’s reflections focus on the complex relationship of the individual to and in society, here in his role theory, in which he focuses on the constraints and possibilities of how the individual arranges himself in the “vexing fact of society”, develops it, and influences it [22]
This refers to joint research in a researcher tandem with different disciplinary backgrounds as well as constant exchange with researchers and students in the field

Summary

Introduction

In discussing the “materialistic turn” and the theoretical framing of multi-methodological studies, an approach has been developed in recent years within German-speaking human geography and in the sociology of space that has become called “neopragmatic” [1,2,3]. The focus is on the challenge of theoretically framing the various tangible aspects, individual and social/cultural dimensions, plus their interactions with each other, as they exist in complex phenomena such as landscape and spatiality [4]. This is a challenge that regional geography has to embrace since it is not limited to partial aspects, such as the social construction of spaces, but must be responded to in its synthesis [2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. The normative basis makes neopragmatism compatible with the political philosophy and sociology of the German-British philosopher Ralf Dahrendorf, who formulated the increase of individual “life chances” as a central social norm [20,21]: On the one hand, Ralf Dahrendorf’s reflections focus on the complex relationship of the individual to and in society, here in his role theory, in which he focuses on the constraints and possibilities of how the individual arranges himself in the “vexing fact of society”, develops it, and influences it [22]

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion