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).
Project publications (total 3, displaying 1 - 3)
The development of the Czech countryside differs in many ways from trajectories typical for Eastern and Central European rural areas in the last 25 years. In our article, we discuss the nature of the ‘Czech exceptionalism’, with reference to three examples, namely population development, the dynamics of rural/agricultural labour markets and rural governance.
The spatial concentration of social disadvantage in rural areas not only poses a risk to social cohesion but also represents a challenge for public policy. This article draws on a multidimensional concept of disadvantage to study spatial aspects of disadvantage in Czech rural areas. Current studies aimed at identifying ‘inner peripheries’ as areas with an increased risk of social exclusion fail to distinguish between different forms of disadvantage.
A key issue in socio-economic geography is to understand how regional and social polarisation shapes the territorial organisation of society. We argue that effects of polarisation are not translated simply and straightforwardly in a whole region, but vary to a large extent with respect to different types of accessibility areas. We applied the time-accessibility framework to classify a territory into urban, peri-urban, rural, and remote rural areas at a national and regional scale.
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