GRASSROOTING THE SPACE OF FLOWS

The “space of flows,” the concept I advocated a decade ago, represents the material arrangements that allow for simultaneity of social practices without territorial contiguity. In this article, I refer to a series of dimensions of autonomous expression of social meaning in the space of flows, with emphasis on electronic spaces, but in interaction with the space of places. I argue that a new dynamics is operating, a dynamics of interpenetration of uniformity and autonomy, of domination and resistance, and of instrumentality and experience, within the space of flows. The geography of the new history will not be made of the separation between places and flows, but out of the interface between places and flows and between cultures and social interests, both in the space of flows and in the space of places.