Innovativeness as Fresh Ground: From an Old Buzzword to New Praxis

Abstract

Geographies of everyday life are subject to constant change. Social utilization and appro-priation, attachment of meanings and negotiation, decay and restoration, planning and modification, artefacts and architectural alteration develop these spaces. In this paper, we regard spatial planning not only as an institutional category but as the intended alteration of geographies and as a core domain of geography with the strongest future-oriented impetus. People are agents and objects of spatial planning, being influenced and being potentially influential at the same time. We have to ask how people can participate in these changes, bringing in (and improving) creative approaches, thus innovating geographies and societies. This question emphasizes innovativeness, i.e. the ability to create innovations, as an educational aim. For this, we have to define the fuzzy term ‘innovation’ more clearly for an educational and a geographical context. In this regard, we enrich approaches such as Spatial Citizenship in which geomedia are used as tools to communicate about spaces in order to appropriate and change them.