Event is a phenomenon that lately has become more common, especially within the tourism industry. This essay is a study within human geography and with focus on the meaning and the design of events. The purpose with this essay is to examine and describe the concept of event and to show how events can influence a region. Falkenberg is situated in the county of Halland by the west coast and the sea and because of that a natural tourist destination. The city is a known seaside resort since the end of the nineteenth century. Our method is a case study with interviews with seven of the participants active within events in Falkenberg.

This essay shows that events are limited in time and space, they have their own attraction and uniqueness and it all sums up into what the visitor expects to experience and what they will experience. An event is a business opportunity, and it increases the flow of visitors and money through the region. The image of the region can be influenced by events and in the long run lead to a brand that enhances the regions values.

Samernas livssituation som statslös nation inom staten Sverige uppmärksammas av FN på grund av att deras rättigheter kränks. Hur kommer det sig att välfärdsstaten och föregångslandet Sverige inte behandlar Europas enda urfolk på ett korrekt sätt?

Denna uppsats undersöker hur samernas tillgång till marken förändrats under de senaste århundradena i förhållande till vem som haft makten över marken, samt vilka lagar och regler som skapats för att ge urfolk världen över ökade rättigheter till den mark som de levt av sedan urminnes tider.

För att få svar på hur samerna och andra urfolk har behandlats i förhållande till deras markrättigheter och användning av de ytor och platser som är och har varit viktiga för dem, genomfördes en kvalitativ intervju. Intervjun gjordes med professor Gunlög Fur en mycket ämneskunnig person från Linnéuniversitetet. Som ett komplement har en litteraturstudie och en mindre jämförande studie genomförts.

I resultatet av litteraturstudien påvisas att staten enligt tidigare forskning har väldigt svårt att ge samerna självbestämmande över marken som de kallar Sápmi, då de överstatliga regler och lagar för hur detta ska gå till, ofta hamnar i konflikt med markägare och staten egna lagar.

Uppsatsens jämförande studie där samernas situation i Sápmi jämförs med två andra urfolk, nämligen kurderna i Kurdistan och mapuchena i Wallmapu, visar att det finns både likheter och skillnader mellan urfolkens rättigheter till marken och i vilken utsträckning de under historien har haft olika förutsättningar för markanvändande beroende på vem som haft makten över marken.

En analys av resultatet av studien visar att urfolkens värdering av markens betydelse sällan handlar om ekonomiska värden utan om historiska, geografiska eller kulturella kopplingar.

Slutsatsen av denna studie blir att urfolks rättigheter till mark ser ungefär lika ut oavsett vilken stat de lever inom. Deras rätt till självbestämmande är väldigt begränsad och deras markintressen hamnar i stort sätt alltid i skymundan för de ekonomiska intressen som styr staters agerande.  

Racial capitalism has received much attention within the social sciences over the past few decades, including fields such as urban geography and infrastructural studies. This state of the field identifies key contributions, highlights the latest developments, draws attention to limitations, and points to future directions. Given the concept's multiple iterations and lineages beyond Cedric Robinson's framework, there is a risk racial capitalism might become an empty signifier if more work is not done by scholars to define their points of departure, clarify the concept's theoretical reach, and expand empirical contributions beyond the U.S. heartland. To advance the racial capitalism body of work, current scholarship suggests theoretical conversations with postcolonial theory, decolonial thought, Indigenous studies, and feminist approaches. There is also a need to engage not only with other variants of racial capitalism, but also with earlier scholarship that investigates the interplay between race/racialization and space.

City–Region Food Systems (CRFS) is a cutting-edge concept and an emerging field of research. As a new analytical lens, it offers an integrated and multi-dimensional perspective on food’s origins, how it is grown and the path it follows to our plates and beyond. Building on this concept, this presentation reflects a prospective research project which seeks to explore opportunities for innovative and sustainable food systems in the Gothenburg region of Sweden by focusing on how rural and urban regions, food production and market can be integrated to promote regional food security. The project intends to: 1) develop scenarios with stakeholders for local food production in the region; 2) analyze the consequences of the scenarios on landscape change and biodiversity; 3) explore socio-economic consequences for producers and local communities; and 4) evaluate the sustainability and feasibility of scenarios with stakeholders. Five municipalities in Western Sweden (Gothenburg, Kungälv, Lerum, Alingsås and Essunga) will serve as study areas for the project, selected to reflect different kinds of potential for local food production in terms of dissimilar environmental conditions, prerequisites for farming and economic histories. The project responds to expressed interests and knowledge needs in the region and will be developed and implemented in direct cooperation with local and regional actors such as Västarvet, the Västra Götaland Region, the municipalities and various producer organizations. In sum, there are premises suggesting that recent urban food strategies and plans with sustainability ambitions are embracing several Sustainable Development Goals in the environmental, social, economic, and equity dimensions. This, in turn, is a characteristic of the Transition Movements pathway, in which the utility of food strategies in the work with sustainability transitions seems inevitable. The results are therefore likely to be transferable to other regions.

The United Nations identifies the food crisis as one of the primary overarching challenges facing the international community. Different stakeholders in the food system have widely different perspectives and interests, and challenging structural issues, such as the power differentials among them, remain largely unexamined. These challenges make rational discourse among food system actors from different disciplines, sectors and levels difficult. These challenges can often prevent them from working together effectively to find innovative ways to respond to food security challenges. This means that finding solutions to intractable and stuck issues, such as the food crisis often stall, not at implementation, but at the point of problem identification. Food system sustainability means very different things to different food system actors. These differences in no way undermine or discount the work carried out by these players. However, making these differences explicit is an essential activity that would serve to deepen theoretical and normative project outcomes. Would the impact and reach of different food projects differ if these differences were made explicit? The purpose of this initial part of a wider food system research project is not to search for difference or divergence, with the aim of critique, but rather to argue that by making these differences explicit, the overall food system project engagement will be made more robust, more inclusive and more encompassing. This paper starts with some discussion on the different food system perspectives, across scales, regions and sectors but focuses primarily on the design of processes used to understand these divergent and at times contradictory views of what a sustainable food system may be. This paper draws on ongoing work within the Mistra Urban Futures project, using the food system projects in cities as diverse as Cape Town, Manchester, Gothenburg and Kisumu as sites for this enquiry.

The tourism industry is a sector with a large income and is expected to continue its expansion both in Sweden as well as internationally. The last couple of years have seen the total consumption within the tourism industry amount to 270 billion SEK. Due to Sweden’s rich natural and cultural values, attractive and clean nature and well-functioning cities, growth is expected. However, not all parts of the country partake in the expansion at the same rate. In Gothenburg, its north-eastern districts receive almost every second newly-immigrated resident, while the pressing housing shortage locks in a familiar pattern of poor living conditions, ill health and dire future outlooks. Gothenburg continues to be a socio-economically segregated city, while its northern districts are in strong need of enhanced development to increase their level of self-sufficiency and of breaking negative patterns. At the same time, there are great assets vested in the area in the form of agricultural landscapes, attractive natural settings and a strong cultural life with influences from all over the world. To this background, this presentation looks into whether socio-economic problems inherent of a segregated city can be partly solved by engaging in the growing tourism sector and by focusing on food production, sustainable tourism, and the natural and cultural advantages of the area. This is done by investigating an ongoing municipal sustainability project in the north-eastern areas of Gothenburg. It is an interdisciplinary endeavor involving several different municipal authorities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations, with the intent to increase the areas sense of involvement and to strengthen sustainable business development within: food production, tourism, green business and climate-smart logistics platforms and networks for cooperation. The aim of this presentation is to explore how social inclusion and labor market integration can be facilitated through tourism and food.

Despite the long tradition of fieldwork and qualitative research practice in tourism studies, the reporting of methodological notes and reflections is limited in the literature. Many excellent methodological remarks in research reports and graduate theses find few outlets in academic journals and those few contributions that are eventually published often emphasize the novelty of the method rather than crucial aspects such as positionality and embeddedness. This is further evident in urban studies with regard to post-disaster recovery research. This article seeks to fill the current gap in the field by providing a reflective methodological account on fieldwork and elite interviews in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand. It does so by implementing a framework addressing key points in the elite interview process, with emphasis on access to fieldwork sites, power relations, positionality, rapport and ethical issues. The manuscript presents aspects of fieldwork, spatiality and power relations that tend to be overlooked in the literature. Albeit being context-specific, it is argued that the evidence from this study can also have relevance to the understanding of fieldwork in other post-disaster and tourism contexts.

Ett jordbruks omvandling och förvandling till industriområde, i ett lokalt sammanhang som följt de större dragen i Sveriges utveckling.

I Kiruna pågår i detta nu en enorm stadsomvandling. Delar av staden, bland annat stadens centrum, ska flyttas cirka tre kilometer i östlig riktning. Anledningen till detta är att gruvbrytningen som pågår i Kiirunavaaragruvan, väster om staden, orsakar markdeformationer vilket gör att marken i de berörda delarna av staden snart inte längre kommer att vara beboeliga. Denna uppsats undersöker hur stadsomvandlingen påverkar Kiruna, samt hur staden arbetar för att den ska klara av en framtid där det inte längre finns någon gruvverksamhet i staden. Näringslivsfrågor är något som står i centrum för uppsatsen, framförallt vilka försök som görs för att kunna differentiera stadens näringsliv. Utöver hur en sådan näringslivsförändring kan gå till undersöker uppsatsen hur stadsomvandlingen kan bidra med andra saker till staden, hur Kiruna genom stadsomvandlingen ska kunna bli en bättre och attraktivare plats att bo på. För att få svar på uppsatsens frågeställningar har kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts med personer som arbetar med Kirunas stadsomvandling. Dessutom har litteraturstudier använts som ett komplement. Uppsatsen innehåller även en jämförande studie där Kirunas näringslivsförändring jämförs med två andra städers näringslivsförändringar, nämligen näringslivsförändringarna i Llanelli, Wales och i Barnsley, England. Resultatet lyfter fram två näringar fram inom vilka det finns förhoppningar att sysselsättningen ska öka inom. Dessa näringar är turistnäringen och rymdverksamheten, vilka redan är sysselsätter många kirunabor. Gällande hur Kiruna ska bli en attraktivare plats att bo på genom stadsomvandlingen lyfts flera aspekter fram. Bland annat bostadsbyggande, för att råda bot på den bostadsbrist som sedan länge funnits i staden. Dessutom lyfts det fram att staden vill förändra sin bild, från att ha varit en gruvstad med manliga yrken och manliga ideal till att bli en modern och jämställd stad där alla människor ska kunna känna sig hemma. Den jämförande studien visar på både likheter och skillnader mellan de olika städernas näringslivsförändringar. Något som alla tre städer har gemensamt är att när näringslivet har förändrats så har även en förändring av stadens utseende skett, det har skett stadsomvandlingar i alla tre städer, även om ingen givetvis kan mäta sig med omfattningen på Kirunas stadsomvandling. Den största skillnaden mellan jämförelsestäderna och Kiruna är att i jämförelsestäderna fanns det ingen förutbestämd strategi för hur de förlorade arbetstillfällena inom gruvnäringen skulle ersättas. Detta ledde till att städerna fick en stor arbetslöshet fram till ett sätt att ersätta de förlorade arbetstillfällena skapades. I och med att det i Kiruna redan finns en plan för hur dessa arbetstillfällen ska ersättas kommer Kiruna förhoppningsvis undvika att hamna i samma situation. 

Visual representations are important components in the construction of our social life. They depict the world around us and shape peoples everyday behavior. They are a medium through which we communicate and can be understood as social constructions dependent upon cultural understandings. Pictorial representations have become part of the economic sphere and are used in tourism in order to overcome its immaterial character by providing a physical evidence for the tourist. Coloured by tourism ideology, they transform a place into a destination. This study examines visual representations of Uddevalla through a lens of promotional photographs published on Instagram and the online tourism destination image they project based on a compound content analysis-semiotic analysis method. The aim is to exemplify the visualisation of places and provide an understanding for the explicit and implicit messages conveyed through denotative and connotative signs in pictures. This is done by answering three questions: (1) What representations are being used to form a destination image and what image is being projected? (2) How does the mediated massage within the pictures correspond to the destination profile?(3) In what way is ideology being expressed? The result show a synecdochical image of a coastal destination which should be experienced outdoors through physical activities or by gazing over picturesque and idyllic landscapes. However, questions remain regarding the relationship between the projected destination image and the intended destination profile developed by tourism planners.

This paper concerns in which ways people from local communities’ value cultural heritage sites in their region and how they perceive their possibility to be an active part in its management. There have over the last decade been a number of performed studies showing that civic participation in the governing of heritage sites is to be sought for, simultaneously being essential when it comes to the benefits that may be achieved. There is, however, a criticism towards the managers of these cultural heritage sites that they fail to consider the local community, and consequently losing  peoples trust.  Identifying that field as an area that requires further studies, this case study aim to examine how people from the local community values the cultural heritage site Äskhults by and in which manner they feel able to participate in its management. Interviews is the method this study is based upon, where i have conducted eight separate interviews which has been structured around predetermined questions.

In this particular study the results show that a historical value is frequently referred to by the locals, and is what most of them treasured about the heritage site. It also became clear that the respondents highly valued their communication with the operators involved, however, the respondents impression on whether they actually could influence the decisions and governing of the cultural heritage site was less distinct and left some to be desired.

Denna uppsats handlar om hur människor förhåller sig till de två begreppen ekologiskt och närproducerat. Fokus ligger på vad som av konsumenten uppfattas som närproducerat respektive ekologiskt. Vilka faktorer som påverkar konsumenterna d.v.s. varför väljer de ekologisk eller närproducerad mat och slutligen hur kopplas deras tankar kring hälsa och miljö ihop med det ekologiska och närproducerade? Studien är en undersökning med en så kallad etnografisk metod där observationer och intervjuer genomförts på plats i butik. Undersökningen behandlar synen på ekologiska och närproducerade livsmedel. Begreppet ekologiskt har en mer tydlig plats i lagstiftningen än vad gäller närproducerat. Begreppet närproducerat har inte på samma sätt som det ekologiska ingått i regeringens mål mot hållbar utveckling. Detta har dock inte hindrat konsumenterna från att ta till sig begreppet och göra det till ett viktigt inköpskriterium när de handlar. Undersökningen behandlar även dessa två begrepp i förhållande till det konventionella jordbruket, där för och nackdelar diskuteras. Vilka är konsumenterna som handlar dessa varor och vad får det för konsekvenser för miljön? Uppsatsen belyser även ny forskning och en fråga som diskuteras är om maten verkligen räcker till för alla om det skulle vara så att allt odlas ekologiskt.

För mig har intresset för tidsgeografi vuxit eftersom komplexiteten i ämnet är stort, men även att tidsgeografi är något varje individ upplever i sin vardag. Varje individ kommer antagligen att ställa sig inför valet att arbetspendla någon gång i livet.

Syftet med undersökning är att få fördjupad kunskap om människans val att arbetspendla, med inriktning mot hur bildandet av Linnéuniversitetet har påverkat arbetspendlingen mellan Växjö och Kalmar. Undersökningens syftar också till att få en fördjupad kunskap om hur sammanslagningen har påverkat Växjös region. För att besvara frågeställningarna användes intervjuer där fyra av Linnéuniversitetets personal blev intervjuade om deras upplevelse av hur sammanslagningen har påverkat deras arbetspendling och vilka restriktioner som de upplevt under resans tid.

Den första januari 2010 blev startskottet för Kalmar högskola och Växjö universitet att bli Linnéuniversitetet. Detta öppnade upp för flera institutioner att samarbeta med varandra, för att en högre kunskapsnivå skulle uppnås. Det gav även fler möjligheter till att konkurrera med andra universitet. I och med denna sammanslagning blir Linnéuniversitet Sveriges nyaste universitet.

Regionförstoring sker vid en sammanslagning av universitet, där en ökning av humankapital förekommer i regionen. Växande kompetens kan öka regionens tillväxt och etablering av infrastruktur har effekten blivit att pendlingen har ökat och lett till att rörelseströmmen både har ökat och förflyttats.

Det finns tre olika restriktioner som styr människans möjlighet att förflytta sig i tid och rum. För det första har individen biologiska restriktioner som påverkar dess prestationsförmåga att nå sin destination vilket heter kapacitetsrestriktion. Den andra kallas kopplingsrestriktion och innebär att individen blir beroende av att befinna sig på en plats vid en viss tid genom ett beroende av andra individer. Den tredje restriktionen innefattar den tidsgeografiska aspekten på maktutövning. Detta innebär att en individ kan stöta på enheter som begränsar deras tid.

Resultatet visar att respondenterna har påverkats av sammanslagningen mellan Kalmar högskola och Växjö universitet. De behöver förflytta sig mer mellan de två olika lärosätena. Genom sammanslagningen har deras arbetstjänster utökat och gjort att deras ansvarsområde utökats.

Each year a growing number of people leave their homes due to war, and becomes what is called a refugee. During their escape they are losing their security and also identity. When they arrive at a new country and receive the asylum, they need to construct and create a new identity to fit into society and they are facing a massive adjustment when it comes to the integration part. It can be seen as a complicated process for the refugees. The purpose of this study is to investigate identity issues in people with refugee background, with emphasis on spatial and geographical aspects. This essay is using a qualitative method, semi-structured interviews, where three people have been interviewed about their thoughts and feelings about this essays subject. The empirical data collected from these interviews has been analyzed by methods such as thematization and coding. This study has been conducted by a humanistic theoretical perspective, and by identity theories. The essays result showed that two of three of my respondents, who had both been former refugees, had felt included and excluded in the Swedish society and that they may have constructed their identities to become more Swedish, and both identified themselves with a Swedish- and their native nationality. The third respondent, who was a child to a former refugee, only identified herself as Swedish and has not constructed her identity and had already felt an includeness in the society. The two former refugees perceived that society identified them as immigrant according to their foreign backgrounds, but themselves only identified them by their nationalities. The third respondent did not consider to have been identified as an immigrant or as a child to a former refugee. Two respondents viewed their security to be placebased in Sweden and one of them saw place as a part of her identity. The geographical related experiences seems to have formed and create all of my respondents identities. Place and space have had different roles in the respondents identity creations.

The condition of the environment is one of the most fundamental concerns of cities worldwide, especially when high levels of pollution and environmental destruction exert immense impact on people’s quality of life. This paper focuses on Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, which often tops the charts as the world’s most polluted city. Despite associated problems such as congestion, ill health, and premature death, Macedonia’s scarce resources are instead spent on controversial projects, such as ‘Skopje 2014’, involving creating a national identity through massive and extremely costly constructions of neo-classical government buildings, museums and monuments. The aim of this paper is to compare the situation of Skopje to environmentally oriented activities conducted in several Polish cities and to discuss the possibility of their implementation in Skopje. Considering the scale and scope of Skopje’s environmental problems, the paper offers some priorities for action, including solutions that emphasize institution building, technical input and self-governance. It also highlights a number of economic, ecological, and socio-cultural contradictions involved in the process of achieving sustainable development.

Uppsatsen handlar om hur författare av läroplanen samt lärare i SO ser på den nya läroplanen och kursplanen i geografi. Bakgrunden till arbetet är att det nyligen har bearbetats en ny kursplan i ämnet geografi vilket har medgett förändringar i hur ämnet ska bearbetas. Förändringarna har skett bland annat genom ett centralt innehåll samt nya kunskapskrav.

Undersökningen bearbetas med hjälp av läroplansteori samt tidigare skriven litteratur angående kursplaner och geografi. Läroplansteori ska ge en förståelse för de olika rummen där läroplanen utformas. När läroplanen och specifikt kursplanen i geografi skrevs så uppstod det olika tvister, bland annat angående namngeografins plats. Det uppkom även nya begrepp i kursplanen i form av hållbar utveckling, GIS (geografiskt informationssystem) och exkursioner.

Undersökningen var av kvalitativ karaktär där syftet var att lärare samt författare för kursplanen i geografi skulle ge sin tolkning av den nya läroplanen och kursplanen för SO-ämnen (Samhällsorienterade ämnen). Undersökningen består av två respondenter där det är en lärare och en författare av läroplanen.

Resultatet visade att den nya läroplanen bidragit till skillnader inom styrning och att geografiämnet i sig fått förändringar både inom kursplanen och läroplanen. Den nya kursplanen har bidragit till en separering från de övriga SO-ämnena och huruvida geografiämnet i sig bidrar till en ökad status eller inte skiljer sig åt. Det visade sig även att lärare inom SO ansåg det som negativt att ämnena separerats och att det centrala innehållet var för omfattande. Positivt med den nya kursplanen var att den gav mer tydlighet.

Obtaining functional and inclusive societal organization is not a simple matter of ‘doing it’ by subscribing to winning formulae as there are many choices to be made in the process. Given that conceptual frameworks always guide thoughts, judgments and actions, how we relate to ‘sustainability’ specifically becomes relevant if we aim to achieve a more liveable society. It is increasingly appreciated how all societies contain ‘wicked problems’ or socio-cultural challenges that are multidimensional, hard to pin down and consequently extremely challenging to solve. This seminar engages with the consequent need to recognise this complexity by assembling three ‘brave’ takes on far-advanced problems bedevilling conventionally conceptualised paths towards sustainability. Arguing against oversimplification that comes from domination of polarizing concepts and unquestioned practices and rhetorics, the aim of this seminar is to foster explorations into new territories from which we may learn. This involves thinking differently, even if such thinking must sometimes both provoke and cauterise dissent, and revisit divergent ideological standpoints in order not to dismiss out-of-hand ways towards supposedly common goals.

Structurally weak rural regions in Europe face multiple challenges. Their below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for questions on how to curb these downward spirals and keep people away from the precipice. One notable oversight is that the term “rural areas” can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. In Poland, in the wake of the fall of Communism, it became apparent that bad economic situation, infrastructural deficits and social polarization were most prominent in the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Almost three decades later, the waning academic interest in these farms left little conceptual guidance for the politicians to grab onto, and consequently most estates remain in an ever aggravating limbo. Considering PGRs the epitome of rurality in view of the ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this presentation, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of policy formulation and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples from central Poland. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating structural weakness, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labeling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon standard conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially the case with “inconvenient” ruralities like post-PGR estates, which effectively get swept under the carpet.

1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallisation of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, 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 polarisation that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Considering PGRs “the epitome of rurality” subject to ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of implemented policy and contrast it with contextualised empirical examples. Our findings suggest that efficient policy should be confronted with the expectations of residents at the local level, while introducing top-down actions usually ends in failure as in the case of post-PGR estates.

1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural settings, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, 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 particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Departing from the idea that cultural mechanisms are capable of allowing for established conceptual frameworks to create oppression, this paper challenges the engrained tradition of using ‘rural’ as a guiding label in societal organization when seen through the prism of deprivation. Considering their otherness, PGRs, hence, require a different way of looking at the idea of “rural development”. In this presentation, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of policy formulation and contrast it with a richly contextualized empirical account from a PGR in central Poland. Having taken account of the residents’ everyday lives in the socio-economic, material and discursive dimensions, our findings indicate that the notion of rurality imbricates and leapfrogs meaningful territories at the local level. Our findings suggest that many PGR-related problems are ‘space-independent’ to the point of being aggravated rather than helped by current policy goals, with commonplace conceptualizations of rurality usually ending up in failure – as in the case of “inconvenient” ruralities like post-PGR estates.

Rural regions of Europe face multiple challenges. Among the weaker ones, below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for new questions and efforts to protect people from harm. One notable oversight, however, is that the concept ‘rural’ can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. Harm is both a moral and a legal concept, which in the broadest sense denotes any form of setback to interest that is conceptually induced. What this means is that any abstract division or delimitation upheld or enforced by social factors will at the same time enable and constrain individual agency. Conceptualizations of ‘rural’ draw on imaginations on how the world is like, while the underlying frameworks of understanding depart from efforts to best manage those imaginations. Now in instances where subjectivity is high and elusiveness takes precedence over structured coherence, most imaginations catering to valid conceptualizations of ‘rurality’ will lose their socio-material reciprocity, whereupon conceptually induced harm is likely to manifest. Departing from these ideas, out paper challenges the engrained tradition of using ‘rural’ as a guiding label in societal organisation when seen through the prism of marginalization. Two similar deprivation-ridden estates – one ‘urban’ and one ‘rural’ – were investigated. Having taken account of the residents’ everyday lives in the socio-economic, material and discursive dimensions, our findings indicate that the notions of rurality and urbanity imbricate and leapfrog meaningful territories at the local level. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating marginalization, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labelling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon conventional conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially important in the context of the changed Nordic welfare model, where increased proclivity toward political correctness, openness to immigration and submission to loss of cultural specificity have also inconspicuously altered the notion of development hitherto widely understood as rural.

1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, 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 particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Its dysfunctional character, noticeable in a wide array of dimensions (unemployment, poverty, social anomies, poor health, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, ghettoization) has since posed serious challenges for planners and policy-makers. Typically, estates stricken by these kinds of aggregated predicaments are associated with “urban areas” along with specific theoretical frameworks and their implications for consecutive development strategies. In that light, considering PGRs “the epitome of rurality” subject to ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of various development programs and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples. Our findings suggest that not only is the concept of rurality becoming increasingly difficult to work with on an applicative level, but – in certain environments – it may also be conducive to the reproduction of human suffering.

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.

People’s different relations towards their environment are always the result of how they perceive it and how different spatialities are ascribed symbolic meaning. Given that conceptualizations, frameworks and perceptions always guide our thoughts, judgments and actions (cf. Latour, Law, Urry, Dennett, Foucault), the particular ways in which we relate to certain concepts – and especially concepts chosen to act as inspirational guiding forces for policy development – become expressly relevant if our aim is to achieve more sustainable planning and management. At the same time, seeing policy formulation as a complex actor-network that heterogeneously combines different interests into a unified framework tacitly paves the way for a series of conceptual and practical problems for areas outside of what is considered “the norm”. There, put simply, achieving even the simplest of goals might prove problematic due to lingering preconceived visions of how issues associated with certain spatialities ought to be handled. In this presentation, we explore one such intricate interrelation by revisiting the culturally perpetuated urban-rural dichotomy as a conceptual canvas and – using examples from Poland – juxtaposing it with a type of environment victimized by its imperviousness to urban-rural ideations.

This paper aims to reflect upon the future direction of development in post-PGR (State Agricultural Farms) estates in Poland. Using the estate Chotel (gmina Izbica Kujawska, Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship) as a case study, we analyze the current human resources as represented by the local youth. Our point of departure is the assumption that youths, as a social category, will in the nearest future influence the structure of human resources, which in turn will determine both the pace and the direction of change in rural areas. Given that post-PGR estates are considered some of the most problematic settlement forms with respect to rural planning, and given that their adult residents are known to exhibit loose social bonds, intensified enmity and lack of initiative for co-operation, a number of important questions arises. Firstly, what are the specific human resources of youths in post-PGR estates? Secondly, how do these resources differ from those of their parents? Thirdly, do these resources give hope for future melioration of socio-economic problems inherent of post-PGR estates? The conducted analysis is prognosticating – a quality, which otherwise is extremely difficult to obtain in the context of the studied estates.

This paper aims to reflect upon the future direction of development in former PGR (State Agricultural Farms) estates in Poland. Using the post-PGR estate of Chotel (central Poland) as a case study, the authors analyzed and evaluated the potential of the local youth as human resources for future development. It was assumed that the youth, as a social category, will in the nearest future influence the structure of human resources, which in turn will determine both the pace and the direction of change in rural areas. Given that post-PGR estates are considered some of the most problematic settlement forms with respect to rural planning, and given that their adult residents are known to exhibit loose social bonds, intensified enmity and lack of initiative for co-operation, a number of important questions arise. Firstly, what are the specific human resources of the youth in post-PGR estates? Secondly, how do these resources differ from those of their parents? Thirdly, do these resources give hope for future melioration of socio-economic problems inherent of post-PGR estates? The conducted analysis is prognosticating – a quality, which otherwise is extremely difficult to obtain in the context of the studied estates. The paper concludes that with regard to developmental threats in post-PGR estates the attitudes of the youth and the adults are similar. However, considering developmental opportunities the differences are more pronounced, in favor of the youth.

Suburbanisation is one of the most important processes currently influencing the formation of settlement networks in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. This phenomenon began relatively late in the area, i.e., after the systemic transformation that started in the 1990s. The different pattern of settlement network transformations in Central and Eastern European countries is related not only to the moment when the process of suburbanisation began. These countries, which in the post-war period followed the model of the so-called socialist urbanisation, are distinguished by a different socio-cultural, settlement, and economic context, and above all by the very dynamic processes of suburbanisation. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of factors related to the nature of the settlement network on the perception of the suburban zone by its residents on the example of the Bydgoszcz–Toruń Metropolitan Area (Poland). It was concluded that the specificity of the suburban network is determined by: the degree of actual urbanisation of the area, distance from a large city, and the central functions performed by a given settlement unit. It was assumed that these elements influence perceptions of the suburban zone, which is critical to the sustainability of decisions regarding the choice of the suburban zone as a place to live. Thus, the extent to which individual suburban zones will have stable population in future years can be determined on this basis. The sources of information used in this study comprised statistical data obtained from Statistics Poland which, after carrying out an appropriate statistical procedure, were used to determine the specific character of the suburban areas. On the other hand, a survey conducted by the authors was used – its results helped infer how suburban residents perceive their place of residence. It was shown that suburban zones are highly differentiated settlement units in terms of their settlement specificity and social perception, which makes it possible to infer further, quite differentiated, directions of their population development and the degree of stability of the zones as spatial structures.

In this study, gender equality both in society but primarily football has been discussed with the help of previous research and theories. The study has also focused on women’s soccer players, as they’ve answered a questionnaire about inequalities in the sport and what needs to improve. The study has also involved an elite soccer player, who is currently playing in ‘’Damallsvenskan’’. The result of the surveys was that men occupy a lot of space in the sport, but the landscape has significantly improved for female players in recent years. This could also be seen in the analysis in the study.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ämneslärarna för årskurs 7-9 i Kalmar tätort uppfattar arbetet med stora skolklasser och deras interaktion med eleverna, samt hur relationen ser ut mellan urbanisering och det ökade elevantalet för skolklasser i årskurs 7-9. De frågeställningar som undersökningen baseras på är: hur ser relationen ut mellan urbaniseringen till Kalmar tätort och skolklassernas storlek? Samt vilka uppfattningar har ämneslärare i Kalmar tätort om deras interaktion med stora skolklasser? I studien har fyra kvalitativa intervjuer gjorts för att få förståelse kring lärarnas perspektiv på hur undervisningen sker i större klasser. I undersökningen är det flera viktiga teoretiska begrepp som har använts som teoretiska ram. Tätort, urbanisering, landsbygd och skolans förändring är några begrepp som använts för att undersöka och besvara de två frågeställningarna. Studien visar att befolkningen i Kalmar tätort ökar, men det är inte urbaniseringen som är den främsta faktorn utan det är framförallt andra orsaker. Det är bland annat invandring och ökat barnafödande som är den största orsaken till att Kalmar ökar i befolkningsmängd. De lärare som deltar i denna studie beskriver att arbetsbördan ökar när det är fler elever i klasserna. Skolan och kommunens ekonomiska situation påverkar i hög grad hur klasserna ser ut. Om lärarnas arbetsbörda minskar och att skolorna har bättre ekonomi så skulle det leda till att lärarna och eleverna har mer tid till att öka kunskapsutvecklingen. 

Sweden has a long tradition as a mapmaking nation. Tens of thousands of historical maps,dating from the sixteenth century and onwards are still preserved in archives today, providinga rich resource for studies of city growth and changes in the landscape through time. For morethan ten years an effort has been made by public authorities to transfer this material frompaper onto digital media. Due to modern technology, as for example GeographicalInformation Systems (GIS), researchers have been given improved possibilities to study andanalyze this material. This study uses a qualitative approach, based on both literature studiesas well as map studies. It focuses on the usage of historical maps as well as the problems andpossibilities they provide, both generally in their original form and more specifically in theirdigital form. As an example on how to use historical maps in the analysis of a specific area,four maps of the town of Kalmar have been processed in GIS software to obtain an overallview of the geographical changes the town centre has undergone during a historical periodfrom around 1650 up to 1936. The conducted study has shown that although the accuracy ofhistorical maps is not up to par with modern ones, they provide a useful base in the studies oftown development. If the map studies are supported by examinations of historical literature avery good overview of either a long term development or a more detailed understanding of ashorter time period is obtainable. This study provides an introduction to the usage of historicalmaps in modern landscape studies and an example on what they can be used for.

This position paper argues for the introduction of a philosophy of research impact, as an invitation to think deeply about the implications of the impact agenda. It delves into the transformative influence of prioritizing the end-product of the research journey over the entire knowledge production process. We argue that the prevalence of research impact assessment in Western research ecosystems has reshaped various facets of research, extending from funding proposals to the overarching goals of research agendas, assessment regimes and promotion structures. Through self-reflective analysis, this position paper critically assesses the consequences of this paradigm shift. Utilizing perspectives from the UK, Poland, Sweden, and Finland, we explore tensions, conflicts, opportunities, and viabilities arising from such a shift in the teleological purpose of research. This selection of countries offers a spectrum, ranging from early adopters of impact assessment regimes to those where such evaluation is largely absent as of now, and its intermediaries. Moreover, our examination extends across different disciplinary foci, including allied health, business and management studies, earth science, human geography, and history. Our findings suggest a discernible alteration in the fundamental logic of research, where the focus shifts from checks and balances geared towards the advancement of knowledge, towards other supposedly more important goals. Here research is merely cast as an instrumental means to achieve broader societal, political, economic, environmental (etc.) goals. Additionally, we observe that as the formalization of research impact evaluation intensifies, there are diminishing degrees of freedom for scholars to challenge contemporary power structures and to think innovatively within their research ecosystem.

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.

This paper investigates the dissemination of scientific concepts and ideas through a focus on extra-scientific factors. While scientific progress is usually evaluated in terms of intellectual achievement of the individual researcher, we tend to forget about the external factors that tacitly yet critically contribute to knowledge production. While these externalities are well-documented in the natural sciences, social sciences have not yet seen comparable scrutiny. Using Torsten Hägerstrand’s rise to prominence as a concrete example, we explore this perspective in a social-science case – human geography. Applying an STS (Science and Technology Studies) approach, we depart from a model of science as socially-materially contingent, with special focus being put on three extra-scientific factors: community norms, materiality and the political climate. Echoing Annemarie Mol, we conclude it is these types of conditions that in practice escape the relativism of representation.

Sustainable tourism (ST) has recently become the mainstream of the tourism industry and, accordingly, has influenced contemporary tourism research. However, ST is not just theories about indications and contraindications of global travel, but also a specific language that needs mastering to take sustainability work forward. In other words, what research receives recognition depends on the proficiency in how the articulation in research proposals and within assessment under the heading of “research impact”. The aim of this paper is to investigate how tourism research gains recognition within research evaluation, by investigating the national research appraisal in the United Kingdom (Research Excellence Framework). By using content analysis, we disentangle the rhetorical choices and narrative constructions within researchers’ impact claims. Our findings suggest that researchers adopt a rhetorical style that implies causality and promotes good outcomes facilitating ST. However, the structure of the assessment format enforces an articulation of sustainable research impact without stating the methodological limitations of that such claim. Therefore, the rhetorical choices of ST researchers merely represent a proxy indicator of the claimed impact. We conclude that the lack of rigor in accounting for the impact of ST research may inadvertently restrict attaining ST.

“Trust is central to our social world (…) and to the knowledge claims we make as academics” (Withers, 2016). In the context of human geography and other regional studies, however, trust has not been subject to detailed review, including inquiries into under what conditions trust in the testimony of geography can be warranted, and possibly lost. While research ethics committees represent a formal accountability system set out to ensure that geographers follow ethical guidelines in order not to cause harm, for research-induced harm to be identified there must be a direct connection between research and victim. This raises the question of what to do when there are premises suggesting that research may cause harm indirectly. How can we as researchers deal with this dilemma until the link between research and harm has become formalized through an accountability system? In this paper, we address this problem through the example of collective research practices of human geographers, whose central analytical categories of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are amenable to harmdoing when emulated by policymakers in subsequent so-called “rural” and “urban” development programs. Realizing that raising awareness about the potential harms of research is a time-consuming process, there is a need for provisional solutions in the meantime. In this sense, informal accountability procedures play an invaluable role as they offer guidance to individual researchers how to scrutinize their own positionalities. In this presentation, we propose a new informal accountability procedure that can help the individual researcher evaluate the analytical value of some potentially harmful concepts in order to minimize their impact. Given that human geography has been defined less by its canonical works but rather by its canonical concepts (Johnston & Sidaway, 2014), we must ensure that the canonical concepts we rely on are of such quality as to ascertain solid geographical inquiry. This is particularly important in times of greater academic transparency, when uncritical use of canonical concepts is likely to undermine trust in human geography.

Given that conceptual frameworks always guide our thoughts, judgments and actions, the ways in which we relate to concepts are crucial for how we organize the society. The different ‘turns’ in social sciences (linguistic, cultural, performative, ontological, material, etc.) have had enormous impact on conceptual development, including efforts to reconceptualize, modify or abandon ‘old’ concepts (e.g. class, gender, race, etc.). Nevertheless, despite fierce criticisms, some concepts have managed to “[survive] the onslaught of material reality and philosophical repositioning” (Cloke & Johnston, 2005:10). In biology, this property is known as vestigiality, where it refers to genetically determined structures that have apparently lost most or all of their ancestral function, but have been retained in spite of evolutionary development. With regard to social sciences, the epiphenomenon of vestigiality is seldom reflected upon and hence less understood, despite the fact that continued use of denunciated concepts is likely to exert undesired impact on knowledge production within any given discipline. As such, understanding vestigiality as an aspect of conceptual development is not only important in assessing how concepts develop; it can also yield insights into the human influence on knowledge production without invoking “context” (cf. Asdal, 2012). Departing from an actor-network theory perspective, in this presentation we sketch out a theoretical framework for understanding vestigiality in a social-science context using the parable of an ecosystem. By merging sociomaterial components with psychological factors, such a move acknowledges that conceptual developments are evolutionarily contingent upon both internal (motivations, biases, cognition) and external (materiality, power, group behavior) forces. Departing from the ecosystem idea, we elaborate on 12 drivers most likely to regiment the academic enactment of vestigiality.

Studies on coastal and marine tourism, as well as tourism studies in general, face significant problems regarding streamlining, organization and subsequent financing due to the divergent character of tourism studies as a discipline (cf. Tribe and Liburd, 2016). In order to overcome these difficulties and to justify their relevancy, UK tourism-studies faculties have started to embrace research impact (i.e. the influence of research beyond academia) as a way to secure future funding opportunities. This strategic move elevates research impact as an overarching research objective (telos) for tourism research in general. The aim of this paper is to unpack the practical difficulties that arise in accounting for one’s own research impact and what can be done to secure potential future funding. In this paper, we present insights derived from having discursively studied the assessment process of the governmental research evaluation institution in the UK , which ranked universities according to their research impact, based upon self-reported material. Furthermore, in order to better contextualise the submission of the seven tourism studies faculties, ten UK tourism researchers’ were also interviewed. The results show a general acceptance of the research impact agenda, but also several difficulties in presenting and evidencing research impact, such as accounting for causality, reach and significance. Moreover, the interviews emphasized the difficulties of utilizing research impact in order to secure future financing, in terms of; lack of marketing skills and resources, time constraints and other conflicting strategic considerations. The implications for the individual tourism researcher are as follows; research impact is a promising avenue in order to distinguish oneself from other researchers in order to secure future funding. However, acceptance of research impact as a telos also requires researchers to gain proficiency in non-academic areas of expertise (e.g. as political activists, entrepreneurs or regional planners etc., depending on the type of impact). Thereby, in order to survive in the current UK tourism research sector, academics need to acquire new skills or need to collaborate with individuals who already possess these types of expertise. Acknowledging research impact as a strategy increasingly employed internationally to justify research funding, in this paper we present a number of practical considerations that can be taken into account in order to “survive” this new agenda.

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.