Transit Spaces: (Dis)Connections and the Fluid Places In-Between

In recent years, digitalisation, increased mobility and globalisation have created new spatial dynamics. The places shaped by these dynamics are characterised by the transient movement of people and goods, overlapping networks and meshworks, blurred borders and a constant state of flexibility - physically and culturally. They are also politicised, divided along national and international territories, crossed by goods and people with local and global backgrounds.

As the relationship of people(s) to a place itself has changed, new types and categories of place emerge with shifting understandings of commons, public spaces and geographic characteristics.

A striking geographic example of these developments is the re-emergence of 'fluid spaces' as a phenomenon without boundaries. In this sense, waterways, ports, harbours, seas and oceans exemplify transit zones with no fixed nationality or belonging. They are marked by continually shifting meanings and relations of trespassing, transiting and dwelling.

What could a border region of the future in a context of fluid spaces look like? Could ports be considered as an incarnation of (new) socio-technological systems and thus, as the materialisation of digital ecosystems? The nature of transit spaces, their potentials and limits will be discussed with an international panel of interdisciplinary researchers.