Socio-spatial disadvantage of inhabitants in peripheral rural regions

The project addresses the issue of social disadvantage of inhabitants of peripheral rural regions.

Social disadvantage usually entails a spatial component. The spatial concentration of social disadvantage, exclusion and deprivation and the socio-spatial mechanisms that influence disadvantage are among the fundamental themes of sociological and geographical research. This project contributes to a better understanding of social disadvantage in peripheral rural areas in the Czech Republic, its mechanisms, reproduction and manifestation.

Its aim is to contribute to the knowledge of rural social disadvantage by identifying peripheral rural micro-regions in the Czech Republic, through studying the life circumstances of inhabitants located in these micro-regions, comparing them to the life circumstances of inhabitants from other types of regions (urbanized regions and the non-marginalized countryside) and by examining the mechanisms contributing to the social disadvantage of inhabitants from peripheral regions and potentially to their social exclusion.

At the theoretical level, the project will rely on the conceptualization of rural social exclusion as a failure of societal integration mechanisms (Shucksmith, Chapman 1998, Philip, Shucksmith, 2003, Reimer 2004); on the theory of neighbourhood effects (Wilson 1987) and on the theory of “household practices/strategies” materialized by households facing difficult economic conditions (Meert 2000, Smith 2000).