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As essential components of globalization, the study of practices and processes of space formation promotes a nuanced understanding of globalization. How do people create spaces for social action under the global condition, especially since the nineteenth century, when global interconnectedness increased rapidly? We explore the problem through specific case studies. Anthropologists, historians, geographers, sociologists, global studies scholars, and cultural studies scholars examine the agency of, e. g., members and staff of African regional organizations, Indian migrant workers, female GDR activists, Soviet planning experts, or US novelists. By studying elites as well as middle-class and micro-entrepreneurs – i. e. more and less influential actors – we encourage reflection on the relationship between power and space and examine how spatial entrepreneurs attempt to influence the shaping of space and their spatial literacy. The analysis aims at a better understanding of the different globalization projects, their crisis-like clashes, and the resulting conflictual development of spatial orders.

Contributions to this volume summarize and discuss the theoretical foundations of the Collaborative Research Centre at Leipzig University which address the relationship between processes of (re-)spatialization on the one hand and the establishment and characteristics of spatial formats on the other hand. Under the global condition spatial formats are products of collective negotiations on the most effective and widely acceptable balance between the claim for sovereignty and the need for interconnectedness.

This volume presents papers selected from the presentations at two of the annual summer schools held at the Graduate Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences of Leipzig University's Research Academy; the first one in September 2010 on the topic of „Transnational Actors – Actors of Transnationalization“ and the second one a year later on „Crossing National Borders“. The focus of the summer schools, since the establishment of the programme on „Transnationalization and Regionalization from the 18th century up to the Present“, is one aspect of transnationalism that has increasingly become a central topic in the social sciences as well as in history and cultural studies. This collection demonstrates the productivity of a turn towards growing attention given to transnational dimensions in historical investigation.