Head of the Academic Platform: Mgr. Jaroslav Ira, Ph.D.
The research platform focuses on spatial, urban, and environmental history and their interconnections. Its research examines the relationship between society and its broadly conceived environment in both urban and rural contexts, drawing on the spatial and material turn in the humanities.
In line with the historical processes examined, the platform spans conventional historical periods, covering gradual changes from early modern urban planning to reflections on current discussions about climate change.
The platform seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the roots of our contemporary urbanized and environmentally unsustainable society and historicizes current debates about its future direction, for example in the context of the concepts of “planetary urbanization” and the “Anthropocene”.
Methodologically, it emphasizes an inter/trans-disciplinary approach, linking various dimensions of historical development (economic, social, political, cultural, material, technological, and emotional) and analyzing problems across all levels of geographical hierarchy, from the local to the global scale.
The core thematic areas developed within the platform include:
• Ecology and environmental movement
– ecological change; environmentalism; nature and technocracy
– materiality; technology and the environment; natural resources
• Urbanization and the city
– urbanization; urban planning and architectural history; dominant/alternative forms of urbanity; resilience; transformation and appropriation of the urban environment
• Space and identity
– the relationship between city and countryside; territorial identities; regionalism; national appropriation of landscape; spatial asymmetries
• Cognition and knowledge
– expert and other forms of spatial knowledge; meta-geographical concepts
Members: