| 21. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
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Post-socialist estates and the concept of rurality: From policy to misery
- 2015
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Ingår i: Eastern European Countryside Revisited - 25 years after the transition, 26-27 June 2015 - Toruń, Poland.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, after a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Its dysfunctional character, noticeable in a wide array of dimensions (unemployment, poverty, social anomies, poor health, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, ghettoization) has since posed serious challenges for planners and policy-makers. Typically, estates stricken by these kinds of aggregated predicaments are associated with “urban areas” along with specific theoretical frameworks and their implications for consecutive development strategies. In that light, considering PGRs “the epitome of rurality” subject to ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of various development programs and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples. Our findings suggest that not only is the concept of rurality becoming increasingly difficult to work with on an applicative level, but – in certain environments – it may also be conducive to the reproduction of human suffering.
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| 22. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Rural development vs. conceptually induced harm
- 2018
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Ingår i: 5th Nordic Conference for Rural Research: “Challenged ruralities: Nordic welfare states under pressure”, 14–16 May, 2018, Vingsted, Denmark. - : University of Copenhagen – Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. - 9788779037922
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Rural regions of Europe face multiple challenges. Among the weaker ones, below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for new questions and efforts to protect people from harm. One notable oversight, however, is that the concept ‘rural’ can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. Harm is both a moral and a legal concept, which in the broadest sense denotes any form of setback to interest that is conceptually induced. What this means is that any abstract division or delimitation upheld or enforced by social factors will at the same time enable and constrain individual agency. Conceptualizations of ‘rural’ draw on imaginations on how the world is like, while the underlying frameworks of understanding depart from efforts to best manage those imaginations. Now in instances where subjectivity is high and elusiveness takes precedence over structured coherence, most imaginations catering to valid conceptualizations of ‘rurality’ will lose their socio-material reciprocity, whereupon conceptually induced harm is likely to manifest. Departing from these ideas, out paper challenges the engrained tradition of using ‘rural’ as a guiding label in societal organisation when seen through the prism of marginalization. Two similar deprivation-ridden estates – one ‘urban’ and one ‘rural’ – were investigated. Having taken account of the residents’ everyday lives in the socio-economic, material and discursive dimensions, our findings indicate that the notions of rurality and urbanity imbricate and leapfrog meaningful territories at the local level. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating marginalization, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labelling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon conventional conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially important in the context of the changed Nordic welfare model, where increased proclivity toward political correctness, openness to immigration and submission to loss of cultural specificity have also inconspicuously altered the notion of development hitherto widely understood as rural.
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| 23. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Ruralities of oblivion: When structural weakness gets swept under the carpet
- 2017
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Ingår i: International Conference on Challenges and Opportunities of Structurally Weak Rural Regions in Europe: ”Social Innovations and Social Enterprises Acting Under Adverse Conditions”, Adam Mickiewicz University / RurAction, 4–6 December 2017, Poznań, Poland.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Structurally weak rural regions in Europe face multiple challenges. Their below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for questions on how to curb these downward spirals and keep people away from the precipice. One notable oversight is that the term “rural areas” can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. In Poland, in the wake of the fall of Communism, it became apparent that bad economic situation, infrastructural deficits and social polarization were most prominent in the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Almost three decades later, the waning academic interest in these farms left little conceptual guidance for the politicians to grab onto, and consequently most estates remain in an ever aggravating limbo. Considering PGRs the epitome of rurality in view of the ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this presentation, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of policy formulation and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples from central Poland. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating structural weakness, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labeling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon standard conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially the case with “inconvenient” ruralities like post-PGR estates, which effectively get swept under the carpet.
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| 24. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Ruralities of oblivion: When structural weakness gets swept under the carpet
- 2017
-
Ingår i: International Conference on Challenges and Opportunities of Structurally Weak Rural Regions in Europe: ”Social Innovations and Social Enterprises Acting Under Adverse Conditions”, Adam Mickiewicz University / RurAction, 4–6 December 2017, Poznań, Poland.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Structurally weak rural regions in Europe face multiple challenges. Their below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for questions on how to curb these downward spirals and keep people away from the precipice. One notable oversight is that the term “rural areas” can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. In Poland, in the wake of the fall of Communism, it became apparent that bad economic situation, infrastructural deficits and social polarization were most prominent in the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Almost three decades later, the waning academic interest in these farms left little conceptual guidance for the politicians to grab onto, and consequently most estates remain in an ever aggravating limbo. Considering PGRs the epitome of rurality in view of the ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this presentation, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of policy formulation and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples from central Poland. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating structural weakness, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labeling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon standard conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially the case with “inconvenient” ruralities like post-PGR estates, which effectively get swept under the carpet.
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| 25. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Should I stay or should I go? Polish suburbs vs. social expectations
- 2021
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Ingår i: IGU Commission on Geography of Governance 2021 Annual Conference: “New challenges of local governance in times of uncertainty and complexity”, The International Geographical Union (IGU) / Adam Mickiewicz University, 23–25 June 2021, Poznań, Poland.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Suburbanisation is one of the most important processes currently influencing the formation of settlement networks in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. This phenomenon began relatively late in the area, i.e., after the systemic transformation that started in the 1990s. The different pattern of settlement network transformations in Central and Eastern European countries is related not only to the moment when the process of suburbanisation began. These countries, which in the post-war period followed the model of the so-called socialist urbanisation, are distinguished by a different socio-cultural, settlement, and economic context, and above all by the very dynamic processes of suburbanisation. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of factors related to the nature of the settlement network on the perception of the suburban zone by its residents on the example of the Bydgoszcz–Toruń Metropolitan Area (Poland). It was concluded that the specificity of the suburban network is determined by: the degree of actual urbanisation of the area, distance from a large city, and the central functions performed by a given settlement unit. It was assumed that these elements influence perceptions of the suburban zone, which is critical to the sustainability of decisions regarding the choice of the suburban zone as a place to live. Thus, the extent to which individual suburban zones will have stable population in future years can be determined on this basis. The sources of information used in this study comprised statistical data obtained from Statistics Poland which, after carrying out an appropriate statistical procedure, were used to determine the specific character of the suburban areas. On the other hand, a survey conducted by the authors was used – its results helped infer how suburban residents perceive their place of residence. It was shown that suburban zones are highly differentiated settlement units in terms of their settlement specificity and social perception, which makes it possible to infer further, quite differentiated, directions of their population development and the degree of stability of the zones as spatial structures.
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| 26. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
The ”agri-ghetto”: On dysfunctional landscapes and the rural-urban paradox
- 2014
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Ingår i: Unraveling the logics of landscape. Eds.: Stenseke, M., Dymitrow, M., Saltzman, K. et al.; 26th session of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape, 8–12 September, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg & Mariestad, Sweden.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected both rural and urban areas. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. After a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a special landscape type – “socjałki”. In Poland, the dysfunctional character of socjałki is noticeable in a wide array of dimensions: unemployment, poverty, social anomies and pathologies, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, and ghettoization. The main characteristic of socjałki, however, is their equal prevalence in both urban environments (dormitory suburbs) and in rural areas (state agricultural farms). Particularly in the context of the latter – of which socjałki are an integral part – they differ significantly from traditional rural landscapes of Poland. Nevertheless, being formally rural, they are subject to development programs labeled as “rural”, despite the striking similarity to their urban counterparts, which, in turn, prompt “urban” developmental endeavors. To illustrate this discrepancy, two similar Polish socjałki were investigated – one formally urban and one formally rural. By taking account of the residents’ perceptions of their everyday lives, we allowed them to define their own problems in view of the rural-urban bias that frames and impregnates them. The main research problem revolves around the assumption that socjałki are distinct landscapes that are poorly explicated using the pervasive rural-urban axis as an analytical tool. In this respect, we highlight the consolidation of a new type of landscape that transcends formal dichotomies. We argue it could benefit from being studied and evaluated on the basis of commonalities other than the rural-urban stereotype.
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| 27. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
The ”agri-ghetto”: On dysfunctional landscapes and the rural-urban paradox
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Unraveling the logics of landscape. Eds.: Stenseke, M., Dymitrow, M., Saltzman, K. et al.; 26th session of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape, 8–12 September, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg & Mariestad, Sweden.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected both rural and urban areas. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. After a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a special landscape type – “socjałki”. In Poland, the dysfunctional character of socjałki is noticeable in a wide array of dimensions: unemployment, poverty, social anomies and pathologies, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, and ghettoization. The main characteristic of socjałki, however, is their equal prevalence in both urban environments (dormitory suburbs) and in rural areas (state agricultural farms). Particularly in the context of the latter – of which socjałki are an integral part – they differ significantly from traditional rural landscapes of Poland. Nevertheless, being formally rural, they are subject to development programs labeled as “rural”, despite the striking similarity to their urban counterparts, which, in turn, prompt “urban” developmental endeavors. To illustrate this discrepancy, two similar Polish socjałki were investigated – one formally urban and one formally rural. By taking account of the residents’ perceptions of their everyday lives, we allowed them to define their own problems in view of the rural-urban bias that frames and impregnates them. The main research problem revolves around the assumption that socjałki are distinct landscapes that are poorly explicated using the pervasive rural-urban axis as an analytical tool. In this respect, we highlight the consolidation of a new type of landscape that transcends formal dichotomies. We argue it could benefit from being studied and evaluated on the basis of commonalities other than the rural-urban stereotype.
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| 28. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Urban-rural dichotomy in the context of dysfunctionality
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Integrated development of cities and regions: Local and regional perspective. Man-City-Nature, 10th International Conference, 12-13 October 2015, Toruń, Poland.
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- People’s different relations towards their environment are always the result of how they perceive it and how different spatialities are ascribed symbolic meaning. Given that conceptualizations, frameworks and perceptions always guide our thoughts, judgments and actions (cf. Latour, Law, Urry, Dennett, Foucault), the particular ways in which we relate to certain concepts – and especially concepts chosen to act as inspirational guiding forces for policy development – become expressly relevant if our aim is to achieve more sustainable planning and management. At the same time, seeing policy formulation as a complex actor-network that heterogeneously combines different interests into a unified framework tacitly paves the way for a series of conceptual and practical problems for areas outside of what is considered “the norm”. There, put simply, achieving even the simplest of goals might prove problematic due to lingering preconceived visions of how issues associated with certain spatialities ought to be handled. In this presentation, we explore one such intricate interrelation by revisiting the culturally perpetuated urban-rural dichotomy as a conceptual canvas and – using examples from Poland – juxtaposing it with a type of environment victimized by its imperviousness to urban-rural ideations.
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| 29. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Urban-rural dichotomy in the context of dysfunctionality
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Integrated development of cities and regions: Local and regional perspective. Man-City-Nature, 10th International Conference, 12-13 October 2015, Toruń, Poland.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- People’s different relations towards their environment are always the result of how they perceive it and how different spatialities are ascribed symbolic meaning. Given that conceptualizations, frameworks and perceptions always guide our thoughts, judgments and actions (cf. Latour, Law, Urry, Dennett, Foucault), the particular ways in which we relate to certain concepts – and especially concepts chosen to act as inspirational guiding forces for policy development – become expressly relevant if our aim is to achieve more sustainable planning and management. At the same time, seeing policy formulation as a complex actor-network that heterogeneously combines different interests into a unified framework tacitly paves the way for a series of conceptual and practical problems for areas outside of what is considered “the norm”. There, put simply, achieving even the simplest of goals might prove problematic due to lingering preconceived visions of how issues associated with certain spatialities ought to be handled. In this presentation, we explore one such intricate interrelation by revisiting the culturally perpetuated urban-rural dichotomy as a conceptual canvas and – using examples from Poland – juxtaposing it with a type of environment victimized by its imperviousness to urban-rural ideations.
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| 30. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
-
Youth of former State Agricultural Farm estates as local human resources : Młodzież z osiedli popegeerowskich a kształtowanie społecznych zasobów lokalnych
- 2016
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Ingår i: Studia Obszarów Wiejskich – Rural Studies. - 1642-4689. ; 44
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to reflect upon the future direction of development in former PGR (State Agricultural Farms) estates in Poland. Using the post-PGR estate of Chotel (central Poland) as a case study, the authors analyzed and evaluated the potential of the local youth as human resources for future development. It was assumed that the youth, as a social category, will in the nearest future influence the structure of human resources, which in turn will determine both the pace and the direction of change in rural areas. Given that post-PGR estates are considered some of the most problematic settlement forms with respect to rural planning, and given that their adult residents are known to exhibit loose social bonds, intensified enmity and lack of initiative for co-operation, a number of important questions arise. Firstly, what are the specific human resources of the youth in post-PGR estates? Secondly, how do these resources differ from those of their parents? Thirdly, do these resources give hope for future melioration of socio-economic problems inherent of post-PGR estates? The conducted analysis is prognosticating – a quality, which otherwise is extremely difficult to obtain in the context of the studied estates. The paper concludes that with regard to developmental threats in post-PGR estates the attitudes of the youth and the adults are similar. However, considering developmental opportunities the differences are more pronounced, in favor of the youth.
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