Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) have been at the forefront of a paradigm shift that sees space and agency as the result of associating humans and non-humans to form precarious wholes. This shift offers ways of rethinking the relations between power, politics and space from a more processual, socio-material perspective. After sketching and comparing the concepts of the assemblage and the actor-network, this paper reviews the current scholarship in human geography which clusters around the four themes of deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation; power; materials, objects and technologies; and topological space. Looking towards the future, it suggests that assemblage thinking and ANT would benefit from exploring links with other social theories, arguing for a more sustained engagement with issues of language and power, and affect and the body.

This paper shows that assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) have much more to gain from each other than debate has so far conceded. Exploring the conjunctions and disjunctions between the two approaches, it proposes three cross-fertilisations that have implications for understanding three key processes in our sociomaterial world: stabilisation, change and affect. First, the conceptual vocabulary of ANT can enrich assemblage thinking with an explicitly spatial account of the ways in which assemblages are drawn together, reach across space and are stabilised. Second, each approach is better attuned to conceptualising a particular kind of change in sociomaterial relations: ANT describes change without rupture, or fluidity, whereas assemblage thinking describes change with rupture, or events. Third and last, assemblage thinking could fashion ANT with a greater sensitivity for the productive role of affect in bringing socio-material relations into being through the production of desire/wish (d esir). We demonstrate the implications of these cross-fertilisations for empirical work through a case study of the global market for assisted reproduction.

There is considerable ambiguity about what makes an event a mega-event. Intervening in this debate, this paper develops a definition and classification scheme for mega-events. On the basis of a review of existing definitions, it proposes four constitutive dimensions of mega-events: visitor attractiveness, mediated reach, costs and transformative impact. The paper develops indicators for each dimension and maps onto these four dimensions a sample of the latest editions of nine large events (Expo, Summer and Winter Olympics, Football World Cup, European Football Championship, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games, Universiade). From this, it develops a multi-dimensional, point-based classification scheme of large events according to size, distinguishing between major events, mega-events and the recently emerging class of gigaevents. Concluding, it identifies the need for more systematic data on the size, costs and impacts of a broad range of large-scale events over time.

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a b s t r a c tTourism in protected areas can create considerable income for adjacent communities. Based on faceto-face visitor surveys, the present study measures the structure, size and economic impact of tourist expenditure in the six German national parks Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer, Bayerischer Wald, Eifel, Müritz, Hainich and Kellerwald-Edersee. We find that mean daily expenditure per person of national park visitors is considerably below the national averages for tourists in Germany: day-trippers spend between EUR 7 and 13 per day (national average: EUR 28), whereas overnight visitors spend between EUR 37 and 57 (national average: EUR 120). The proportion of visitors with high national park affinity varies between a maximum of almost 46% in Bayerischer Wald and a minimum of nearly 11% in Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer. Between 49% and 51% of tourist expenditure is captured as direct and indirect income. The total impact of tourism ranges between EUR 525 million in Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer and EUR 1.9 million in Kellerwald-Edersee, reflecting the national parks' distinct trajectories as tourist destinations. In order to increase the economic benefits accruing from national parks regional policy could aim at a qualitative upgrading of tourist services, increased marketing of the unique national park label and the promotion of a diverse regional supply base.

Carving up the world into Global North and Global South has become an established way of thinking about global difference since the end of the Cold War. This binary, however, erases what this paper calls the Global East – those countries and societies that occupy an interstitial position between North and South. This paper problematises the geopolitics of knowledge that has resulted in the exclusion of the Global East, not just from the Global North and South, but from notions of globality in general. It argues that we need to adopt a strategic essentialism to recover the Global East for scholarship. To that end, it traces the global relations of IKEA’s bevelled drinking glass to demonstrate the urgency of rethinking the Global East at the heart of global connections, rather than separate from them. Thinking of such a Global East as a liminal space complicates the notions of North and South towards more inclusive but also more uncertain theorising.