In order to access to the wide range of transcultural, translocal and transregional interactions in interstitial spaces from a transnational perspective, the International Research Training Group “Between Spaces” is divided in three research areas:

Spaces of Networks

The research area “Spaces of Networks” analyses various forms of movements, such as the commercial and financial flows by means of which the Americas, beginning in the sixteenth century, were integrated into the global economy. A further example of such movements is depicted by immigrants, travellers and ‘discoverers’ who formed and form, from the early colonial period to the present, the basis for the transfer of knowledge and culture.

Spaces of the Local

The research area “Spaces of the Local” is focused on how the practices of actors work at a local level and the new spaces that emerge in this process. Local actors appropriate globally circulating technologies and symbols in order to negotiate the uses and meanings of concrete places. Therefore, this area studies previously less researched spaces of the local in their translocal networks, such as colonial settlements, nodal points, for instance ports or border towns, or smaller urban units, such as barrios or gated communities.

Spaces of Representations

The research area “Spaces of Representations” comprises symbolic representations of space and its structuring and mediation through knowledge and signs. The underlying assumption is that spaces are created through perception. Hence, this area is about both the symbolic and the mediated representation of spaces through oral, written and visual signs.