John Urry, a pioneer of the spatial turn and one of Space and Culture‘s first board members, has passed away.  The Sociology Department at Lancaster has posted an obituary. This is a true loss.  John shifted the direction of British sociological thought more that once – pioneering place-based investigations, the turn to culture and to space with iconic works such as The Tourist Gaze.  He was prolific and a generous editor, collaborator and co-author.  His later work courageously assesses a future After the Car and pushed social science to move beyond the limits of the nation state in Sociology Beyond the State.

Rob Shields (University of Alberta)