Spazio e spazialità nell’opera di Simmel e Durkheim

Contemporary social theorists argued that classical sociology has often eluded the importance of space and spatiality in social life. In recent decades, a “spatial turn” arisen in the social sciences and humanities witnessed the reintroduction of space in social theory, as sociology itself did by rediscovering space as a key feature of theoretical models. However, despite the claimed absence of space in the sociological tradition, not all classical sociologists have ignored space in their work. Two important exceptions are Georg Simmel and Émile Durkheim. This essay thus reconsiders the way these authors have dealt with space and spatiality and how their works on the matter may represent key antecedents of more recent research lines. In the light of a modern “spatial perspective” as well as of the “new sociology of space” practised by some contemporary sociologists, Simmel and Durkheim’s approach to space is carefully examined to integrate the relevant debate, focusing on several theoretical and methodological issues.