Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to discuss social representations of rural settlements in Poland revealed through sketch maps and semi-structured individual interviews. Presented research has been conducted in 21 villages, carefully selected on the basis of the Historical Atlas of Rural Areas in Poland, to collect a set of representative examples from different historical periods and from different cultural regions of Poland. The study reveals the way that inhabitants of selected villages perceive their living space, meanings they assign to specific places in their neighbourhood both from an individual as well as a collective perspective. Presented research shows that besides dynamic changes of rural spaces and rural lives, many elements remain stable, permanently inscribed into the rural landscape and social relationships. The chapter confirms that social representations are of great importance in the study of individual human-environment relations, having many cognitive and practical functions, expanding the research perspectives with the issue of subjective space.
Authors contributed equally to drafting the contents of the section on Research Goal and Methodology. However, M. Wójcik wrote Introduction and Final Remarks, P. Tobiasz-Lis wrote the part of Results section on Rural settlements represented in sketch maps, whereas P. Jeziorska-Biel wrote the part on Valorisation of village space.
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Acknowledgements
Presented research is a part of the National Science Centre funding scheme, “Spatial representations of rural settlements in Poland”, conducted by the Department of Regional and Social Geography, University of Lodz since the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2019.
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Wójcik, M., Tobiasz-Lis, P., Jeziorska-Biel, P. (2021). Spatial Imaginations as a Form of Rural Representation. Lessons from Poland. In: Banini, T., Ilovan, OR. (eds) Representing Place and Territorial Identities in Europe. GeoJournal Library, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66766-5_15
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