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This article critically examines the new guiding concept of transformation in the spatial sciences with regard to its underlying narrative - namely the Anthropocene. Without such an examination, spatial science research might contribute to apolitical, spatially undifferentiated and Eurocentric governance and transformation research. Hence, I propose to place political aspects and questions of power more firmly in the focus of theoretical, methodological and empirical interest and to take up a general perspective of inequality. Plurality and diversity (from a social and spatial perspective as well as with regard to knowledge production) therefore become the central transverse dimensions of governance and transformation research, which should essentially be reflexive.

Der Beitrag setzt sich kritisch mit dem neuen raumwissenschaftlichen Leitbegriff "Transformation" auseinander, indem das zugrunde liegende Begründungsnarrativ - das Anthropozän - in den Blick genommen wird. Geschieht dies nämlich nicht, so unterliegt die raumwissenschaftliche Forschung der Gefahr, zu einer a-politischen, räumlich undifferenzierten und eurozentrischen Governance- und Transformationsforschung beizutragen. Stattdessen schlage ich vor, das Politische und Fragen der Macht stärker in den Fokus des theoretischen, methodischen und empirischen Interesses zu rücken und eine generelle Ungleichheitsperspektive einzunehmen. Pluralität und Diversität (in sozialer und räumlicher Perspektive sowie mit Blick auf die Produktion von Wissen) werden so zu zentralen querliegenden Dimensionen einer raumwissenschaftlichen Governance- und Transformationsforschung, die vom Wesen her reflexiv angelegt sein sollte. ; We are facing a Great Transformation from the dominating fossil shaped non-sustainability to a postfossil sustainable development. In this paper I introduce into the research of sustainability transitions with a special focus on the spatial perspective. Approaches and research are presented. Focusing on the spatial dimensions of sustainability transformation has to be time-conscious.

Die Wasserrahmenrichtlinie und das Integrierte Küstenzonenmanagement gelten als Beispiele für einen umweltpolitischen Paradigmenwandel des europäischen Gemeinschaftsrechts. Die Arbeit geht der Frage nach, ob und wie diese Ansätze zu einer Veränderung von Governance auf regionaler Ebene führen. Die Fallstudienanalyse bedient sich der Governance-Perspektive, um auf Formen des Regierens mit zivilgesellschaftlicher Beteiligung zu fokussieren. Von besonderem Interesse ist das Zusammenspiel zwischen institutionellen ¬Bedingungen und kollektivem Handeln von Akteuren. Die regionale Ebene steht im Vordergrund der Empirie, weil ihr von der EU eine besondere Bedeutung zugeschrieben wird. Neu an den gemeinschaftsrechtlichen Ansätzen und für eine geographische Arbeit von hoher Relevanz ist, dass ein integriertes Management in neuen Raumeinheiten angestrebt wird (Küstenraum / Flusseinzugsgebiet).

AbstractThis paper explores the micro-geographies of water access in the context of a first-class residential neighborhood of Accra served by the city's networked infrastructure. We focus our analyses on how water is accessed and supplied to six kiosk compounds—privately owned, walled plots of land provisionally inhabited by urban dwellers living in kiosk-like structures with the (tacit) knowledge of the plot-owners. We document how kiosk inhabitants access pipe-born water, despite not being directly connected to the city's network, through diverse configurations of actors, practices, and material set ups. Our findings suggest more attention should be paid to the micro-geographies of water distribution in networked neighborhoods as this contributes to more nuanced understandings of the uneven and diverse ways through which water is distributed in the context of Accra's incremental urbanization. To analyze this diversity, we suggest combining the heuristic of heterogenous infrastructure configurations with the concept of water bricolage and using the plot as a unit of analysis.

Das Working Paper beleuchtet den Themenbereich Energie und arbeitet Herausforderungen für die Raumentwicklung der Großregion ab. Es diskutiert den Begriff der Energiewende und legt einen Fokus auf Energiesysteme und –träger, insbesondere den Ausbau der Windkraft und Energiegewinnung aus Biomasse im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung fossil-atomarer Energiequellen in Deutschland und Frankreich.

In the context of accelerated global socio-environmental change, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus has received increasing attention within science and international politics by promoting integrated resource governance. This study explores the scientific nexus debates from a discourse analytical perspective to reveal knowledge and power relations as well as geographical settings of nexus research. We also investigate approaches to socio-nature relations that influence nexus research and subsequent political implications. Our findings suggest that the leading nexus discourse is dominated by natural scientific perspectives and a neo-Malthusian framing of environmental challenges. Accordingly, the promoted cross-sectoral nexus approach to resource governance emphasizes efficiency, security, future sustainability, and poverty reduction. Water, energy, and food are conceived as global trade goods that require close monitoring, management and control, to be achieved via quantitative assessments and technological interventions. Within the less visible discourse, social scientific perspectives engage with the social, political, and normative elements of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. These perspectives criticize the dominant nexus representation for itsmanagerial, neoliberal, and utilitarian approach to resource governance. The managerial framing is critiqued for masking power relations and social inequalities, while alternative framings acknowledge the political nature of resource governance and socio-nature relations. The spatial dimensions of the nexus debate are also discussed. Notably, the nexus is largely shaped by western knowledge, yet applied mainly in specific regions of the Global South. In order for the nexus to achieve integrative solutions for sustainability, the debate needs to overcome its current discursive and spatial separations. To this end, we need to engage more closely with alternative nexus discourses, embrace epistemic pluralism and encourage multi-perspective debates about the socio-nature relations we actually intend to promote.

In this intervention, we reflect on the potential of environmental justice and climate justice approaches to reveal the politics of climate change adaptation. Taking the attempts at dealing with extreme flooding events in Venice as an example, we illustrate that different dimensions at the core of the environmental justice concept (distributive and procedural justice and justice as recognition) are helpful to analyse and to politicise climate change adaptation interventions. We call for a transformative research agenda to reconfigure interventions and expertise to more closely account for the socio-political processes and narratives shaping coastal environments and to foster multiple epistemologies. Above all, this entails strengthening the inclusion of local (environmental) knowledge, the involvement of the populations affected by interventions in adaptation planning and the open discussion of political questions and values shaping interventions.

In this intervention, we reflect on the potential of environmental justice and climate justice approaches to reveal the politics of climate change adaptation. Taking the attempts at dealing with extreme flooding events in Venice as an example, we illustrate that different dimensions at the core of the environmental justice concept (distributive and procedural justice and justice as recognition) are helpful to analyse and to politicise climate change adaptation interventions. We call for a transformative research agenda to reconfigure interventions and expertise to more closely account for the socio-political processes and narratives shaping coastal environments and to foster multiple epistemologies. Above all, this entails strengthening the inclusion of local (environmental) knowledge, the involvement of the populations affected by interventions in adaptation planning and the open discussion of political questions and values shaping interventions.

This working paper examines the concept of metabolism and its potential as a critical analytical lens to study the contemporary city from a political perspective. The paper illustrates how the metabolism concept has been used historically, both as a metaphor to describe the technological, social, political and economic dimensions of human-environment relations, and as a concrete analytical tool to quantify and better understand how flows of matter and energy shape the territorial and spatial configurations of cityscapes. Drawing on the example of the urban water metabolism of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), it is argued that contemporary approaches to metabolic analysis should be extended in two ways to increase the integrative potential of the urban water metabolism concept. On the one hand, the paper demonstrates that a political ecology approach is particularly well-suited to illuminate the contested production of urban environments and move beyond a narrow technical, managerial and state- centric focus in research on urban metabolic relations. On the other hand, the paper advocates for an approach to metabolic analysis that views the urban environment not simply as a relatively static exteriority that is produced by dynamic flows of matter, energy and information, but rather as a dynamic, nested and co-evolutionary network of complex biosocial and material relations, which in itself shapes how various metabolisms interact across scales. The paper then concludes by briefly discussing how a combination of metabolic analysis and political ecology research can inform urban water governance. In sum, the paper emphasizes the need for metabolic analysis to remain open to a plurality of different knowledge forms and perspectives, and to remain attentive to the inherently political nature of material and technological phenomena in order to allow for mutually beneficial exchanges between various scholarly communities.