| 1. |
- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(författare)
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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.
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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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| 2. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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Digitally modeling regional development in Europe : A new methodological approach to policy analysis
- 2013
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Ingår i: Presented at 9th International Conference Man–City–Nature: “Integrated development of cities and regions”, 14–15 October 2013, Toruń, Poland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sustainable regional development faces the complicated task of integrating socio-demographic, environmental and economic goals into a functioning policy proposal. The challenges of the 21st century are further complicated by the new nature of rural-urban relations that render traditional dichotomous approaches counterproductive. The latest EU rural development initiative proclaims itself as a fundamental break from older efforts that primarily focused upon agribusiness. This new humanistic vision includes improved quality of life, environmental sustainability and economic diversification alongside traditional agricultural tenets. New research takes this realization further, expressing a need for new conceptual tools to handle this ‘new rural’ reality seen as a composite of material and social aspects. Since older conceptualizations of the rural as agriculturally dominated might still linger on, the achievement of new humanistic planning goals is a complicated task. Policy planning – a complex actor-network of different interests – heterogeneously engineers different interests into a unified framework. In this case, the major refocus within policy planning, including re-conceptualizations of the ‘new rural’ and the new rural-urban relations, should, accordingly, be accommodated within the actual policy documents. If not, the proclaimed focus of the regional development goals could strike as empty political rhetoric. Due to their size, policies are often summarized. A policy summary should consequently be an unambiguous representation of the policy as a whole. Qualitative summarizations, however, may be problematic due to human biases. To circumvent this problem, this study borrows a technique from the digital humanities called topic modeling. This technique was applied to the framework of EU’s rural development policy for 2007–2013 and compared with the proclaimed development goals. First indications of the analysis show that there are indeed attempts to accommodate these new conceptualizations. However, the primary focus is still on agribusiness. Thereby, the humanistic focus of seeing the rural as more than agriculture-dominated areas does not appear to be strengthened. By adhering to a rationale different than the assumed one, such tendencies may possibly complicate the fulfillment of sustainable socio-economic development goals.
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| 3. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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Quality of life in rural areas: A topic for the Rural Development policy?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series. - : Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika/Nicolaus Copernicus University. - 1732-4254 .- 2083-8298. ; 25:25, s. 25-54
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary transformations of rural areas involve changes in land uses, economic perspectives, connectivity, livelihoods, but also in lifestyles, whereupon a traditional view of 'the rural' and, consequently, of 'rural development' no longer holds. Accordingly, EU's 2007-2013 Rural Development policy (RDP) is one framework to incorporate aspects labelled as quality of life (QOL) alongside traditional rural tenets. With a new rendition of the RDP underway, this paper scopes the content and extent of the expired RDP regarding its incorporation of QOL, in order to better identify considerations for future policy making. Using novel methodology called topic modelling, a series of latent semantic structures within the RDP could be unravelled and re-interpreted via a dual categorization system based on RDP's own view on QOL, and on definitions provided by independent research. Corroborated by other audits, the findings indicate a thematic overemphasis on agriculture, with the focus on QOL being largely insignificant. Such results point to a rationale different than the assumed one, at the same time reinforcing an outdated view of rurality in the face of the ostensibly fundamental turn towards viewing rural areas in a wider, more humanistic, perspective. This unexpected issue of underrepresentation is next addressed through three possible drivers: conceptual (lingering productionist view of the rural), ideological (capitalist prerogative preventing non-pecuniary values from entering policy) and material (institutional lock-ins incapable of accommodating significant deviations from an agricultural focus). The paper ends with a critical discussion and some reflections on the broader concept of rurality.
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| 4. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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The digital shaping of humanities research : The emergence of Topic Modeling within historical studies
- 2014
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Ingår i: DASTS 2014 Conference: “Enacting Futures”, Danish Association for Science and Technology Studies (DASTS), Roskilde University, 12–13 June 2014, Roskilde, Denmark. ; , s. 52-52
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The epistemological affordances of technologies such as the Internet and computers are – yet again – offering promising and threatening opportunities to reshape humanistic research. The large digitization efforts within humanities has created new kinds of ‘big data’ textual source materials only a ’mouse click away’ (e.g. Google books, JSTOR or the Bodleian Digital Library). This socio-technical development presents new epistemological challenges for research within various humanities disciplines. To aid this effort, some researchers are turning to new kinds of (digital) data-mining methods to tackle this complexity. The subject of this study, topic modeling (TM) is such a digital humanities method. The presentation systematically surveys academic applications of topic modelling – an algorithm that parameterizes word concurrences – within historical research. The aim is to answer questions such as; what are the stated benefits of TM, whether there is qualitative differences between TM and traditional methods, and what new epistemological challenges TM creates for historical research? Our starting point is 2004 with the first peer-reviewed historical article and end point in 2013 with the publication of a special journal issue on applications of TM. Our preliminary results show that TM indeed affords new possibilities of innovative qualitative approaches in historical research. However, for all practical purposes TM is, as of yet, not a ‘black-boxed technology’ as many of its key variables still lack general agreed upon standards. This incorporation of TM within historical studies appears to be analogues to earlier developments in disciplines such as; human geography or psychology. These earlier introductions of quantitative tools and methodologies into previously qualitatively dominated disciplines ultimately changed the character of these disciplines. If this will occur within historical studies or humanities remains to be seen.
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| 5. |
- Brauer, Rene, et al.
(författare)
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Using topic modelling to analyse EU’s Rural Development policy
- 2013
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Ingår i: Symposium on Systematizing and Digitalizing Nordic Policy Studies: “Emergent perspectives within Swedish and Finnish research”, Aalto University, 27 November 2013, Helsinki, Finland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Any social research at some point always touches upon issues dealing with the situatedness of the researcher. Policy analysis is no exception, and there have been many quantitative attempts to mitigate problems that arise from human biases. The general concern is that, for the most part, these methodological approaches remain fairly basic (e.g. word frequencies) in comparison to the semantic nuances a human reader would normally experience. In that light, the here presented approach explores the possibility of using topic modelling as a way to quantitatively assess policy without forgoing those finer nuances of human analysis. In this presentation, the material subject to topic modelling is EU’s Rural Development policy for 2007–2013 (RDP). It proclaims itself as the first European rural policy to in its conceptual framework cover aspects labelled as quality of life (QOL). In this paper, we treat this particular statement as a hypothesis, to which topic modelling is used to investigate if this really is the case. For any concept (not just QOL) to be incorporated into a policy and to retain its influence, it must be both mentioned and linked to other parts of that same policy, elsewise it could strike as merely a rhetorical strategy. Thereby, the hypothesis is that the more themes (topics) relate to a particular concept the more relative importance the policy allocates to that particular concept. In order to gauge this relative importance of QOL within RDP, we created a categorisation based upon: (1) the RDP’s own conceptual understanding of QOL, and (2) definitions provided by contemporary cutting-edge research dedicated to QOL. The analysis shows that only about 4 % of the topics found within the RDP relate to the issues of QOL. These particular topics only mention aspects of QOL without any explicit signs of implementation. This marginal position of QOL within RDP has been corroborated by other audits of the RDP using traditional qualitative techniques. Therefore, with further methodological development, this experimental application of topic modelling in policy analysis might represent one potential alternative to traditional qualitative methods.
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| 6. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek
(författare)
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Changing landscapes and rural-urban awareness: Conceptualizing rurality and urbanity through the prism of experiential space
- 2013
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Ingår i: Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global. IALE 2013 European Congress, 9-12 September 2013, Manchester, UK.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout the developed world, rural areas are in economic, social, and visible transition, to a significant degree as a result of urbanization. Realizing that a changing society is in constant need of redefinition, the rural-urban distinction is especially important to look into on a systematic basis. One reason is that although the outdatedness of the rural-urban dichotomy is widely acknowledged it is still largely sustained, not least in rural and urban development policies which are still conducted separately. Such practice may seem questionable in the face of the progressive blurring of these concepts, making them all the more subjective. In that light, there is a need to capture that subjectivity’s logic and anchor it locally, where the effects of policy eventually materialize. As such, taking into account the perception of local residents could help mitigate the subjectivity enclosed in the referential framework of those who exert power, mainly specialists and planners. In this paper, it is assumed that the concepts of rurality and urbanity are not only a result of the changing conditions in particular places but also of the changing theoretical perspectives on what is regarded rural or urban. In result, both tracks equally affect the material – i.e. the very real – lives of people who inhabit these areas. Ultimately, when some seemingly innocuous awareness-shaping processes coupled with the broader concepts of rural and urban are ignored, there may be ramifications when the locally perceived and the centrally defined fail to converge. Consequently, this paper is not about ideas on how ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ areas should be organized and managed. Rather, it foregoes such actions by focusing on the cognitive phase that precedes any kind of labeled development. By assuming a humanistic perspective, the concepts of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are discussed with emphasis on local perception and experiential space as important factors in their current understanding. There are indications that this dimension is locally significant and that the perception of rurality/urbanity is much derived from the physical characteristics of the lived environment, despite the rural and urban having been lately largely regarded as social constructs. In light of the critique of the emergent material turn, the potential of the concept of ‘landscape’ is explored, here seen as a bridge holding together the physical and the subjective tenets of rural-urban awareness. It is argued it could serve as a useful conceptual tool for creating context of the conflicting envoys on how rurality/urbanity should be understood, and particularly so in times of extensive land use changes induced by urbanization.
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| 7. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek
(författare)
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Degraded towns in Poland as cultural heritage
- 2013
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Ingår i: International Journal of Heritage Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1470-3610 .- 1352-7258. ; 19:7, s. 613-631
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper discusses how the concept of cultural heritage is currently used in relation to the so-called degraded towns (i.e. deprived of their urban status) in Poland. It shows the role of heritagisation in the process of restitution of urban status, and addresses the effects of the ongoing revitalisation of degraded towns in order to restore their lost urban glory. I argue that the Polish understanding of urbanity is ambiguous, muddling formality with cultural connotations. I address how such convolution both rewrites history and affects modernity by the imposition of values and foreclosures. I also discuss how alterations to the built environment made in the name of cultural heritage (revitalisation) are often conducted with disregard to identity, authenticity and historical hybridity, and how the introduction of ‘history’ into a modern arena affects the local society. I conclude that considering degraded towns as a special form of cultural heritage is a new construction, where coupling of the disconnected dimensions of the Polish understanding of urbanity becomes even more apparent. I stress that this field is neither sufficiently differentiated nor problematised, and that cultural heritage relating to degraded towns is often taken for granted.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek
(författare)
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Local perception and experiential space as useful resources for mitigating the rural-urban dichotomy
- 2013
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Ingår i: Responsible Geographies. Nordic Geographers Meeting 11-14 June 2013 - Reykjavik, Iceland.. - 9789979997689 ; , s. 176-177
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although the outdatedness of the rural-urban dichotomy is widely acknowledged, the rural-urban distinction is still largely sustained. Moreover, with a plethora of aspects to define these two concepts, in practice only a few are effectively taken into account when formulating policies for rural/urban development respectively. Such conduct might seem questionable in the face of the progressive blurring of these concepts, making them all the more subjective. In that light, the logics of such subjectivity should be captured and anchored locally, where the effects of policy become directly tangible. Using examples from formally rural yet largely de-agrarized settlements in Poland this paper discusses the concepts of ‘rural and ‘urban’ by emphasizing local perception and experiential space as important factors in their current understanding. Field studies and discussions in local media indicate that this dimension is locally significant and that the sense of rurality/urbanity is much derived from the physical characteristics of the lived environment rather than from its mere degree of socio-economic development (despite the latter being at the center of debate). There are also suggestions that divergence between the locally perceived and the centrally defined concept of rural/urban (along with the specific paths of development the latter entails) may result in popular discontent. This paper suggests that in order to better understand and to more efficiently conceptualize the ‘new rural’ (particularly in a cross-cultural context), more attention should be paid to the perception of the locals, concurrently striving for a greater convergence between the generic, the experiential and the emotional.
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| 10. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek
(författare)
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Managing “lesser urbanity” in light of the assumptions of revitalization
- 2013
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Ingår i: Integrated development of cities and regions. Man-City-Nature, 9th International Conference, 14-15 October 2013, Toruń, Poland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Enhancing the quality of life in rural areas was inscribed as one of the three core policy objectives for EU’s 2007–13 rural development. In small rural towns, conservation and upgrading of the local heritage became an important part of that objective, to a large extent mediated through the concept of revitalization. Understood contemporarily as granting a place its lost values, to be effective, revitalization must go hand in hand with the intellectual process of restoring memory. In regard to ruralized towns dating back to Middle Ages (or being later morphological derivatives of), such restoration is largely vested in the historical element – their urban past. Therefore, the intent of revitalization in this particular context is often that of visually enhancing or restoring the towns’ deteriorating urban character. However, despite good intentions, many such projects may strike as feeble, uncoordinated, unnecessary and even pernicious, often as a result of deficient knowledge and/or understanding of the local context, particularly in terms of historicity. With a visual approach to “lesser urbanity”, this explorative paper combines theory and field observations to encapsulate the problematic nature of public space in environments where “urbanity” has a clear cultural foundation. It aligns small-town centers with certain conceptual foundations which in this context are indispensable for imparting an unambiguous air of urbanity that is culturally acquired and therefore expected. It also takes into account factors such as scale and residuality, arguing that lege artis implementation of highly urban traits within extremely underpopulated and/or heavily ruralized towns is confusing to the locals and therefore questionable. The purpose of such presentation is, partly, to reveal the real-life conditions of small-town centers in light of the assumptions of revitalization, and, partly, to spawn a discussion on how they could be organized by adding alternative perspectives to the aesthetic/functional discourse currently impregnating trends and policies in urban design.
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