La gobernanza es a la vez un concepto controvertido y una creciente preocupación empírica relacionada con una miríada de desafíos sociales contemporáneos y dilemas de acción colectiva. El propósito de este número especial es invitar a una conversación sobre nuevos conceptos de gobernanza y su relación con las redes y el territorio en los estudios ambientales, regionales y urbanos.

The versatile ‘city building’ processes are in the focus of this issue. The author’s papers deal with a plurality of related issues such as the complexities of the increasing transparency of local property markets or the tight relations between city planners and (inter-)national investors. As the built environment decides on a city’s economic prospect and determines future planning and development opportunities, the consequences of city building processes are multifaceted. Financial processes of urban (re)development, for example, are discussed at the cutting edge of a larger process of uneven development, which is rooted in the structure of the capitalist mode of production and fuels controversial debates on the ownership of the city. The current edition aims to attract further attention to the complex of financial matters and the production of the built environment with the intention to locate both more centrally within geography, planning, and economics. Against this background, this introduction spans the idea of the decision-making itself in financial and real estate markets, which can neither be limited to a singular moment nor be separated from the context in which they take place. Disentangling these market interdependencies and illustrating the context dependency of decision-making is a common theme in all of the papers included in this issue.

Governance is both a contested concept and an increasingly empirical concern. On the one hand, it has become an almost universal and all-encompassing concept, which has attracted scholarly interest from many disciplines and over many decades to tackle the dilemmas of collective action and to facilitate effective coordination of interests and resources toward commonly accepted goals. On the other hand, conceptions of governance vary considerably, and their meanings depend on disciplinary perspectives, theoretical traditions, and empirical focus. Although it is easy to agree what governance is not, it is more challenging to create broad consensus on what it is and how it works effectively. Most capaciously, governance denotes the coordination of collective action. These actions take place in institutionally or physically organized spaces of interaction, where knowledge is needed to shape governance appropriately. Organized spaces and knowledge are both conditions as well as consequences of the governance process.

La (des)contextualización del conocimiento geográfico en el manejo del riesgo de incendios forestales en Chile como un desafío para la gobernanza 1 The (de-)contextualization of geographical knowledge in forest fire risk management in Chile as a challenge for governance Michael Handke RESUMEN La economía y la sociedad chilena se enfrentan a riesgos crecientes de incendios forestales. Predominan las soluciones de gestión de riesgos individuales en lugar de las colectivas. Las grandes empresas forestales reducen la probabilidad de que los incendios afecten a sus plantaciones con rutinas de gestión de orden jerárquico, compran pólizas de seguro para protegerse de pérdidas económicas desastrosas y diversifican y externalizan su riesgo en el mercado. Estos mecanismos no son disponibles para todos actores en las regiones forestales chilenas que experimentan los incendios principalmente como efectos externos negativos. El articulo evalúa las ventajas y desventajas de las formas jerárquicas y mercantiles de la gestión del riesgo y denuncia la necesidad de un enfoque geográfico más profundo en cuanto a la gobernanza. Así, se revela que el conocimiento geográfico detallado sobre los riesgos de incendios forestales se descontextualiza explícitamente en las prácticas actuales de gestión de riesgos en Chile. El conocimiento detallado de las causas y efectos de los incendios, se pierde en el proceso.