Paper short abstract:

Like the diverse character of the components forming a city itself, research on cities often focuses on separate aspects of the urban complex and its development. How can theory be used to unite the ideational and the physical parts of urban studies?

Paper long abstract:

Bound by its material confines archaeology is always struggling to retrieve the animated processes that left behind observable traces. Spatiality is the most immediate datum of the material record and supplies a wealth of reflective shapes. Somewhere between the contrariety of the measurability of basic shapes and their original ideational background archaeological discourse is located. The urban environment offers probably the most elaborate spatial record; a material reflection expressing the way human convivence was organised. In order to study the urban landscape we need both ends of the spectrum. On the one hand we need to understand the ideational formation processes of the social, while on the other hand we need to understand how that becomes materialised as reflected by measurable records. Only when these theoretical prerequisites are met a start of explicating human space can be made.

This presentation will make a tentative exploration of both the ideational (social) approach to space and the more material (built) approach to space as a means to offer an introduction to ways we can think about and study the spaces of the urban environment. In urban studies an integrative approach combining social theory, urban and historical geography, planning, modelling, and spatial analysis is rarely found. The historical depth of archaeology seems apt to contribute both through scrutinising theorisation and the broad temporal scope of its data. Mediating between these two sides, are adaptations of sociological middle-range theory the path to a better understanding of the development of the physical shape of cities?