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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Babbie, E. (2007). Badania społeczne w praktyce. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday & Company.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). Invitation to a reflexive sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Cloke P. (1997). Country backwater to virtual village? Rural studies and “the cultural turn”. Journal of Rural Studies, 13, 367–375
Cloke, P. (Ed.). (2003). Country visions. Pearson: Harlow.
Dear, M. (Ed.). (2002). From Chicago to L.A: Making sense of urban theory. London: Sage.
Downs, R., & Stea, D., (1977). Maps in minds: Reflections on cognitive mapping. New York, NY: Joanna Cotler Books.
Gregory, D. (1994). Geographical imaginations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Halfacree, K. (2004). Rethinking ‘Rurality’. In T. Champion & H. Graeme (Eds.), New form of urbanization: Beyond the urban-rural dichotomy (pp. 285–306). Burlington: Ashagate.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kitchin, R., & Dodge, M. (2007). Rethinking maps. Progress in human geography, 31(3), 331–344.
Kitchin, R., & Freundschuh, S. (Eds.). (2000). Cognitive mapping: Past, present and future. New York, NY: Routledge.
Ladd, F. C. (1970). Black youths view their environment: Neighbourhood maps. Environment and Behaviour, 2, 74–99.
Lefebvre, H. (1991 [1974]). The production of space [La production de l’espace]. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mordwa, S. (2003). Wyobrażenia miast Polski Środkowej. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Price, L., & Evans, N. (2009). From stress to distress: Conceptualizing the British family farming patriarchal way of life. Journal of Rural Studies, 25, 1–11.
Riley, M., & Harvey, D. (2007). Oral histories, farm practice and uncovering meaning in the countryside. Social and Cultural Geography, 8, 391–415.
Sletto, B. I. (2009). “We drew what we imagined”: Participatory mapping, performance, and the arts of landscape making. Current Anthropology, 50(4), 443–476.
Soja, E. (1999). Thirdspace: Expending the scope of the geographical imagination. In Human geography today (pp. 260–278). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Szulc, H. (2002). Atlas Historyczny Wsi w Polsce. Warszawa: IGiPZ PAN.
Thrift, N. (1996). Spatial formations. London: Sage.
Tobiasz-Lis, P. (2013). Zmiany wyobrażeń przestrzeni Łodzi w świadomości mieszkańców. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Tobiasz-Lis, P., & Wójcik, M. (2017). Representations of rural settlements in the debate of multifunctional countryside. Example of Poland, Bulletin de la Société Géographique de Liège, 69, 29–39.
Tuan, Y. T. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Wartmann, F. M., & Purves, R. S. (2017). What’s (not) on the map: Landscape features from participatory sketch mapping differ from local categories used in language. Land, 6(79), 1–16.
Wójcik, M., Jeziorska-Biel, P., & Czapiewski, K. (2019). Between words: A generational discussion about farming knowledge sources. Journal of Rural Studies, 67, 130–141.
Woods, M. (2011). Rural. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Woolgar, S. (1988). Knowledge and reflexivity: New frontiers in the sociology of knowledge. London and Beverly Hills: Sage.
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.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
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
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66766-5_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-66765-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-66766-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)