Groupoids and strong shape (Q2577136)

What have groupoids and strong shape in common? The history of strong shape is shortly this: About thirty years ago strong shape was discovered by D. A. Edwards and H. M. Hastings and independently and simultaneously by the reviewer. Strong shape turned out to be the adequate category to do algebraic topology for ``bad spaces'' (like arbitrary or compact or compact metric spaces) in the same way as one could accomplish algebraic topology for ``good'' spaces (like ANRs). The recipe was to work with higher categories having not only 1- but also 2-, \(\dots\), \(n\)-morphisms where all higher morphisms are homotopies, homotopies between homotopies, \(\dots\). This complicated the whole picture but resulted in a considerably better category than ordinary shape. The best treatment of strong shape for arbitrary topological spaces is due to B. Guenther, cf. also the book by S. Mardesic, which is in the list of references of the present paper. With a delay of 15 to 20 years there were ``breaking discoveries'' of ``new'' approaches to strong shape theory, mainly consisting in changes of the notation. The present author tries to develop a strong shape category for arbitrary pairs of categories \((\mathcal C, \mathcal K)\) together with a functor \(E: \mathcal K \to \mathcal C\). For that purpose he introduces groupoid enriched categories = g.e. categories which means 2-categories where all 2-morphisms are isomorphisms. The 2-category \({\mathcal Top}\) has this property. Since a groupoid is defined to be a category where all morphisms are isomorphisms, we know now how groupoids enter the scene. Pursuing this further, skilfully exploiting category theoretical techniques, the author comes down with a category \(\Sigma(\mathcal C, \mathcal K)\) and a shape functor \(\sigma: \mathcal C \to \Sigma(\mathcal C, \mathcal K)\), which inverts exactly the strong shape equivalences, and which is the identity on the objects. In a last section he compares this with other constructions of strong shape for topological spaces, where he seemingly encounters the following problem: If one has the ambition to work with arbitrary spaces rather than with compact metric spaces, where everything is much simpler, one needs, in order to establish a good strong shape category, higher homotopies and cannot confine himself just to homotopies and homotopies between homotopies. Hence \(\infty\)-categories are involved. It would be interesting and desirable to find more examples beyond topological spaces with ANRs as ``good objects'' where the author's construction yields interesting results. As I pointed out, the original invention of strong shape was not only for fun, but due to the desire to develop algebraic topology, specifically to understand Steenrod-Sitnikov-homology. What are the benefits of the authors construction 1) in a general categorical setting, e.g. for algebraic categories and 2) in specific examples other than topological spaces?