Das Objekt der Bevölkerung – eine wissenschafts- und ideengeschichtliche Annäherung

Abstract

Theoretical debates in social and planning sciences (like urban planning, urban studies, urban sociology or social geography) are rarely focussing on the term “population” in an explicit way. But implicitly (and as an object) population is—as a complementary concept to “space”—in the centre of such spatial sciences quite often. The purpose of this paper is to take an epistemological glance at the history of the concept of population. Firstly I trace back to Michel Foucault’s history of governmentality and work out the meaning of population in this context. Secondly I go to the discourses of population sciences that take place in national economy in nineteenth century and recapitulate the large debates and their population conception (i.e. Malthus, Marx and Engels, Schmoller, Oppenheimer, Mombert). Thirdly I look at population policy especially in the 1920ies and 1930ies, which handles with concepts like “overpopulation” and “Bevölkerungsoptimum” and which are deeply embedded in the NS-state and its ideology. In my conclusion I bring forward the argument that population is a fundament of spatial planning and space science (“Raumforschung und Raumplanung”) and that therefore is a demand for a permanent controversy concerning the concept of population.