Ole B. Jensen: The city: power and network. A new urban sociology’s reading of the representational logic of urban interventions
This article presents an analytical framework for revitalising the field of urban sociology. It draws on two forms of discussion within sociology. On the one hand, there is the contemporary discussion among sociologists such as Sassen and Castells. On the other hand, the framework involves an understanding of social practices as spatial and material, as well as being embedded in cultural and normative contexts of meaning. Thus by applying a general frame for understanding social action as both spatial and symbolic practices, the article suggests that we can gain a better understanding of how particular interventions in urban space are embedded in a network of representations, institutions and agents, as well as how they reflect a particular power and rationality configuration. The analytical framework is tentatively applied on the empirical case of the urban harbour front development in Aalborg, Denmark.
