Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies
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Knowledge, Space, Environment

Whenever a person takes possession of space – whether as creator and user of infrastructure, or in an aggressive political act of invasion, or cognitively as part of a scientific expedition, or even in the artistic manner of a travel writer – in doing so, he or she always produces and exploits knowledge. Town and regional maps, travel reports and architectural plans are all examples of spatial knowledge, whereas forestry regulations or botanic collections are objects demonstrating environmental knowledge.

It is not only in processes which claim and develop space which we can examine the role of knowledge. Also in processes in which space disintegrates, here one could think of the collapse of empires, is it useful to ask about the fate of the knowledge which occupied that space.

The study group “Knowledge, space, environment” investigated different aspects of the sociological and cultural appropriation of space and the environment and investigates the role different forms of knowledge play in this process. Academic and traditional knowledge are here as relevant as knowledge which is implicit and not codified. The study group asked not only how people acquire (or forget) knowledge about space and environment but also how they, as bearers of this knowledge, influence their surroundings and what influence the surroundings have on them.

Former group leader:

Former members and projects:

  • Dr. Melanie Arndt
    Chernobyl: A Transnational History
  • Jan Arend, M.A.
    Stress between Late Socialism and Transformation. How East German and Czechoslovak/Czech societies dealt with tension and strain, 1970-2000
  • Alice Buzdugan, M.A.
    Urban literature of the interwar period in Romania between national propaganda and cultural philosophy
  • Gerhard Grüßhaber M.A.
    Radio Red Anatolia. Der türkischsprachige Geheimsender "Bizim Radyo" der DDR im radikalen Zeitalter, 1958-1989
  • Dr. Arnošt Štanzel
    An Environmental History of Water Management in Romania and Czechoslovakia during State Socialism (1945-1989). A Comparison.
  • Katalin Tóth, M.A.
    "I love Budapest. I bike Budapest?" An ethnography of urban cycling between local meaning and international sustainability discourses.
  • Max Trecker, M.A.
    Red Money for the Global South: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the Economic Side of the Cold War in the Third World
  • Dr. Martin Zückert
    Structural Policies in the Slovakian Carpathians. State Development Policies and their Social and Ecological Consequences