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.

Universities, as Western cultural institutions, can look back on a long development spanning several centuries. In terms of cultural significance, this puts them into the same league as the church, the state or major banks, to mention but a few. In our modern world of increased globalization and digitalization, universities are tasked with educating an ever-growing number of students. Inadvertently, this also leads to an inflation of the value of academic degrees, let alone to mention the actual quality of the skills that are being taught to students. Governments and other stakeholders are increasingly becoming interested in responsible research and innovation practices. This presentation looks into the consequences of the so called “impact agenda” and what it signifies for the trustworthiness of scientific knowledge. We understand the impact agenda to be the push to evaluate the quality of research based on its outcome (end), compared to its rigor (mean). Departing primarily from research conducted at European universities, we contend that reducing the role of the university to that of mere impact facilitation, accreditation and skills acquisition for its students, may prove detrimental to the respect for the university as an institution. Not only are universities running the risk of underappreciating what they do, but they are also fueling a greater division of society in which the citizenry is trained to use highly sophisticated conceptual tools without being provided the complex understanding needed to wield it competently egged on by research chasing an ever elusive ‘impact’. We argue that the society-wide increase of polarization – fueled by such a dynamic – will increase unless the universities actively acknowledge and embrace their role as shapers and stewards of Western culture. Within our analysis, we discuss the emergent ‘impact or starve’ paradigm to explain why such transgression of the categorical imperative are normalized and not widely publicized and problematized. We reflect both on the individual and collective consequences for knowledge production. Specifically, we draw attention to the unintended consequences that arise when the external value hierarchy of society rewards such an end focused assessment structure in terms of student numbers, research funds, and prestige, which supposedly justifies such ends. Inadvertently, such development ossifies contemporary values in the long term, and devalues the contribution of universities to the development of ideas.

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.

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.

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.

This study sets out to conceptually distinguish between ‘public’ and ‘greater good’ in respect to research impact claims. We argue that the former is a category reflective of genuine benefit for the wider public, while the latter merely represents a rhetorical category to pursue the ends of a select few. Methodologically, we showcase that only within the actual research conduct is it possible to distinguish between these two categories. Likewise, without acknowledging methodological limitations, researchers may contribute to post-truth predicaments in the sense that the interaction ritual chains they are using constitute a mere rhetorical flourish rather than a rigorous argument for genuine benefit. We conclude with an appeal to future scrutiny for how researchers can retain their integrity in this new research impact discourse. We argue that an uncritical use of impact arguments may undermine the very social fabric that makes scientific pursuits possible.

This presentation explores the conceptualization of universities as dynamic "research ecosystems," drawing upon evolutionary and biological metaphors to illuminate the cultural dynamics within these institutions. Acknowledging the limitations of such metaphors (Delanda, 2019), we define the research ecosystem as the milieu wherein academic knowledge production unfolds, with data transformed, legitimized, and narrated into facts by various disciplinary tribes. Our focus lies on understanding how these tribes, encompassing natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, employ stability, universality, and objectivity as rhetorical devices to advance their arguments, despite the inherent flux of these categories intergenerationally. This conceptual research aims to differentiate between three key aspects: firstly, identifying the enduring elements amidst change that enable convincing arguments of continuity; secondly, exploring the factors that mediate change, facilitating a bridge between past practices and present exigencies; and finally, elucidating the ways in which progenitors shape the future trajectory of knowledge creation processes for descendants. Through this tripartite ontological framework, we seek to unravel how cultural practices perpetuate themselves across generations within the research ecosystem. Conceptually, this allows us to methodologically structure our argument, which incorporates cultural practices from the disciplines of geography and tourism studies, as its empirical examples.

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.

Immanuel Kant once wrote that the Conflict of the Faculties is a constant struggle for primacy that causes strife and ultimately undermines scholarly solidarity. His argument is a complex one, as it relates to the very ability of how to judge proper authority, what constitutes scientific truth, and how to create respect amongst a community of people representing divergent opinions. Whilst such considerations are still relevant today, a hitherto under-researched phenomenon is how the bureaucracy of university staff influences intra-collegial conflicts regarding contestations of what constitutes scientific authority. In this theoretically oriented research, we employ Michael Lipsky’s idea of street-level bureaucrats to study the complex mission of the university in practice. Management and public policy scholars employ it to study the implementation of policy at the microsocial level. Here, we focus on three different, yet interconnected, domains: pedagogy, funding, and impact generation, to understand the intentional and unintentional influences of the administrative side of the university upon knowledge production. The key research insights for these three domains are as follows. 

Concerning pedagogy, the medieval university allowed for a master-apprentice style relationship between student and teacher, which, according to modern literature, is the ideal learning situation. Yet, the current, for-profit mass education mode, with its focus on student employability and students-as-customers satisfaction evaluations, inadvertently undermines this pedagogical setting. The unintended consequence of this is teachers refraining from taking on difficult and complex subjects for the sake of scoring well within current student evaluation regimes.

Concerning research funding, the performance of researchers is assessed through the success of their funding applications. The implicit assumption of this regime is that researchers already understand and master the complex rules and implicit social codes of funding applications, which often is not the case. University support teams are, nominally, there to help and guide. However, as those teams are usually chronically understaffed, any difficulties for them are solved with a reference to breaches of technicalities. One consequence of this is researchers feeling alienated and left without support. 

Concerning research impact generation, scholars aligning with the strategic direction of the university leadership’s visions receive disproportionate amounts of support. The rationale behind such unequal treatment is often framed as ‘strategic alignment’. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to let such unequal distribution create discord among the academic community, especially so, when the administrators deliberately omit or alter due processes in order to facilitate the desired outcome. Yet, absurdly, researchers who fall outside of these support frames are still judged to the same standards as the ‘successful’ ones. 

Our contribution to knowledge lies in the conceptualization of the human element in the university bureaucracy. University administration makes judgements with limited understanding of the larger consequences of their own actions. If not properly adjusted for, not only is the solidarity within the university at jeopardy, but it may also directly influence academic knowledge production. We argue that this dimension has the potential to become ‘death by a thousand cuts’ for solidarity amongst university stakeholders.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” is a famous aphorism commonly attributed to Voltaire. The choice to publish under an alias for François-Marie Arouet, reveals that there was some sort of awareness of the relationship between power, knowledge, truth and people’s tyrannical tendencies on his part. What our dear enlightened friend could most likely not foresee, is the enormity of the scale of how big such atrocities can get under the precept of good intentions. For example, both the reign of terror following the French Revolution and the world wars gathered their emotional energy precisely due to their promise of being a manifestation for the greater good. Such dogmatic moral justification of collective benefit, then rationalize and normalize otherwise inexcusable individual transgressions. One of the fads of Anglophone Higher Education over the recent decades has been the introduction of research impact. Both in terms of quality evaluation of research and as a goal for Higher Education in general. For example, the UK national research evaluation defines impact as a ”change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia”. However, since such evaluation constitute part of the wider performance-based research-funding ecosystem; it is highly unlikely that anyone would ever intentionally submit something they themselves regard as a negative. Hence, implicit in this evaluation of research impact is an appeal to the public good. The article systematizes conceptually the distinction between the categories of greater and public good as socially constructed within the context of research in particular and wider society in general. Specifically, we apply the theoretical lens of interaction ritual chains to discuss the confluence of purpose, emotional excitement, and social manipulation in the generation of (research) impact. Conceptually, we distinguish between externally to the university enforced categories of benefit, as compared to bottom-up co-created categories arrived at in collaboration between the university and external stakeholders. Thematically, we focus upon four interconnected contexts in how notions of benefit are constructed and what their role are from the point of view of a microsociology. These are: research grant applications, the research process itself, the publication process and finally research impact evaluation, all in order to approximate the life cycle of research impact and how it relates to notions of the greater or the public good respectively. We conclude with reflecting upon Karl Jaspers ruminations of the utility of ideals for universities, such as scientific truth and academic freedom, as means to differentiate between (genuine) public good and (faux) greater good. Arguably, within the current arrangement not only are these categories undifferentiated, but the instrumentality for other purposes is also the norm and actively promoted by the individuals involved. Specifically, for the state, arguments of impact serve as both justification of investments into research and policy directions. For the research disciplines, they justify their relevancy as to incur future funding. For universities, they receive direct funding through it and use it for promotional purposes. Lastly, academics themselves apply it to argue for their own promotions. Hence, there seems little criticality within contemporary Anglophone universities towards the potential conflation, not to speak of an awareness of the consequences as insinuated by Voltaire.

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.

The epistemological affordances of technologies such as the Internet and computers are – yet again – offering promising and threatening opportunities to reshape humanistic research. The large digitization efforts within humanities has created new kinds of ‘big data’ textual source materials only a ’mouse click away’ (e.g. Google books, JSTOR or the Bodleian Digital Library). This socio-technical development presents new epistemological challenges for research within various humanities disciplines. To aid this effort, some researchers are turning to new kinds of (digital) data-mining methods to tackle this complexity. The subject of this study, topic modeling (TM) is such a digital humanities method. The presentation systematically surveys academic applications of topic modelling – an algorithm that parameterizes word concurrences – within historical research. The aim is to answer questions such as; what are the stated benefits of TM, whether there is qualitative differences between TM and traditional methods, and what new epistemological challenges TM creates for historical research? Our starting point is 2004 with the first peer-reviewed historical article and end point in 2013 with the publication of a special journal issue on applications of TM. Our preliminary results show that TM indeed affords new possibilities of innovative qualitative approaches in historical research. However, for all practical purposes TM is, as of yet, not a ‘black-boxed technology’ as many of its key variables still lack general agreed upon standards. This incorporation of TM within historical studies appears to be analogues to earlier developments in disciplines such as; human geography or psychology. These earlier introductions of quantitative tools and methodologies into previously qualitatively dominated disciplines ultimately changed the character of these disciplines. If this will occur within historical studies or humanities remains to be seen.

This paper calls for greater rigor when it comes to issues relating to research around the ‘impact’ of research impact. It addresses some of its criticisms but also expands on the research program associated with the impact of tourism research. We conclude by addressing the fundamentality of the challenges posed by ‘research impact’. We argue they go to the very core of academic scholarship, as the commoditized neoliberal treatment of impact represents an existential challenge that goes beyond tourism research.

The exceedingly competitive climate of academia has increased the emphasis on performance-based research funding. In this paper we evaluate the UK's government assessment of research impact and critically comment upon the implications for future research conduct. The key findings are as follows; firstly we provide a summary of UK tourism research impact. Secondly, we demonstrate the effect of the resulting significance gap, and comment upon the consequences of the Research Excellence Frameworks' (REF) research impact assessment in terms of a research culture change. Lastly, we proposition that the current assessment structure can have negative long-term consequences in that key issues facing tourism fall outside 'good' research impact.

Universities, as Western cultural institutions, can look back on a long development spanning several centuries. In terms of cultural significance, this puts them into the same league as the church, the state or major banks, to mention but a few. In our modern world of increased globalization and digitalization, universities are tasked with educating an ever-growing number of students. Inadvertently, this also leads to an inflation of the value of academic degrees, let alone to mention the actual quality of the skills that are being taught to students. This presentation looks into the emergent discourse around research impact that is increasingly used to justify the raison d'être of modern universities. Departing primarily from research conducted within the UK, we contend that reducing the role of the university to that of mere accreditation and skills acquisition for its students, in combination with a push for beneficial research impacts for its teachers/researchers is detrimental to the respect for the university as an institution. Not only are universities running the risk of underappreciating what they do, but they are also fueling a greater division of society in which the citizenry is trained to use highly sophisticated conceptual tools without being provided the complex understanding needed to wield it competently. Within our analysis, we employ the concept of maculate reflexivity to explain why such a dynamic is occurring. We understand maculate reflexivity as the presence of reflexivity in the pursuit around extrinsic motivations reinforced by society in relation to contemporary social and environmental goals. However, this happens without due self-examination of what such conduct will mean in the long run as the external value hierarchy of society rewards it in terms of student numbers, research funds, and prestige. Inadvertently, such development ossifies contemporary values in the long term. We argue that the society-wide increase of polarization and populism is fueled by such a dynamic, and will increase unless the universities actively acknowledge and embrace their role as shapers and stewards of Western culture.

This conceptual paper addresses how the emergent impact agenda is slowly but surely changing the normative framework of modern science. In order to understand such a cultural shift, we draw a chronology around the evaluation regime of research impact and identify a causal mechanism that changes the disciplinary structure of the research ecosystem. We draw upon a sociological model of scientific knowledge production that allows us to contrast and discuss how ‘impact facts’ mimic the process of scientific knowledge creation but are geared towards a different end. Such an explicit emphasis on societal contribution not only propositions a different purpose for research, but also changes the very logic of research along its entire construction. Our argument is that an emphasis on the advancement of knowledge, as opposed to impact, maintains innovation and pre-empts social tensions. The contribution of our paper is outlining the societal influence of the scientific ideal of truth, alongside identifying and articulating the unintended consequences around the impact agenda as the emerging impact or starve paradigm. We provide a sociological model of how this new paradigm mimics the creation of scientific facts, nevertheless as it geared towards a different end, it hermetically seals itself from criticism. We conclude that only with an explicit acknowledgement of the adverse potential of the impact agenda is it possible to maintain science’s beneficial impact upon society.

This paper applies critical discourse analysis to scrutinize submissions to the “REF [Research Excellence Framework] 2014 Impact Case Study” platform. More specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical practices used within these submissions to evidence research impact as outlined by the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) within tourism studies. The evidencing practices used within the submissions to Panel 26 (Sport Science, Leisure and Tourism) included quantitative sources and measures (e.g. Google Scholar, citation counts, journal ranking scores, monetary value of research grants, value of policy investment, industry revenue figures, etc.) and implicated ‘high status’-end users (e.g. government bodies, the UN, industry, NGOs) as their main type of evidence. The evidencing of impact did not differ depending on whether the research was of quantitative or qualitative character, neither on the type of research impact claimed. Instead, the disciplining of the epistemic evidencing practices was enforced by the outlined guidelines for submission (verifiable evidence, word count, type of impact). Leaning on Collins and Evans’ (2007) notion of ‘expertise’ used to conceptualize evidencing practices, this paper discusses the implication of such evidencing for an evaluation practice that sets out to assess the quality of research impact. The rhetoric such evidencing evokes, however, is not necessary indicative of the impact claimed. Furthermore, the evidencing practices used within the REF marginalize so-called negative impacts (failures), despite their specific value for research and, consequently, for societal progress at large.

Assessing the value of research results is long-known to be a difficult task. The problem lies in distinguishing between positive and negative results, because this demarcation always depends upon the underlying value system. Regardless of this philosophical difficulty, research assessments largely focus on positive results (i.e. positive impacts of research). For example, UK's 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) reported that an "impressive [array of] impacts were found from research in all subjects" (REF 2015); accordingly, no negative impacts were reported. This effectively marginalises negative results in favour of positive results, inadvertently deeming them 'valueless'. As a marketing strategy for research, it is indeed a powerful approach. However, as an objective scientific standard to justify what research gets funded (or not), due to this one-sided focus, it is less useful. However, negative results can be cognitively and sociologically extremely beneficial (cf. Pinker 2002, Taleb 2014). The paper explores the construction of REF's impact assessment in the case of tourism studies. We show that the impact criteria not only shift the emphasis on positive results, but also emphasize economic gains and short-term impacts. By unpacking the underlying values implicit within the REF, we propose a new socio-material approach that does not marginalise the value of negative results. By using Collins and Evans' (2007) notion of 'interactional expertise', we argue that the underlying value problem can be addressed sociologically.

Seeing human geography as a nexus of temporally oscillating concepts, this paper investigates the dissemination of scientific ideas with a focus on extra-scientific factors. While scientific progress is usually evaluated in terms of intellectual achievement of the individual researcher, geographers 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 on three extra-scientific factors: community norms, materiality and the political climate. These factors are all important in order for knowledge to be disseminated into the hinterland of human geography. We conclude it is these types of conditions that in practice escape the relativism of representation.

Contemporary transformations of rural areas involve changes in land uses, economic perspectives, connectivity, livelihoods, but also in lifestyles, whereupon a traditional view of 'the rural' and, consequently, of 'rural development' no longer holds. Accordingly, EU's 2007-2013 Rural Development policy (RDP) is one framework to incorporate aspects labelled as quality of life (QOL) alongside traditional rural tenets. With a new rendition of the RDP underway, this paper scopes the content and extent of the expired RDP regarding its incorporation of QOL, in order to better identify considerations for future policy making. Using novel methodology called topic modelling, a series of latent semantic structures within the RDP could be unravelled and re-interpreted via a dual categorization system based on RDP's own view on QOL, and on definitions provided by independent research. Corroborated by other audits, the findings indicate a thematic overemphasis on agriculture, with the focus on QOL being largely insignificant. Such results point to a rationale different than the assumed one, at the same time reinforcing an outdated view of rurality in the face of the ostensibly fundamental turn towards viewing rural areas in a wider, more humanistic, perspective. This unexpected issue of underrepresentation is next addressed through three possible drivers: conceptual (lingering productionist view of the rural), ideological (capitalist prerogative preventing non-pecuniary values from entering policy) and material (institutional lock-ins incapable of accommodating significant deviations from an agricultural focus). The paper ends with a critical discussion and some reflections on the broader concept of rurality.

This paper addresses the question whether biogas plants (businesses based on renewable energy) often marketed as a great opportunity for rural development can at the same time pose a hidden challenge. Departing from the concept of embeddedness of enterprises in the local environment, our objective is realized with the help of two models of biogas plants. In the first model, biogas plants operate as an integral part of agricultural farms (biogas on-farm model); in the second model, they operate as independent companies established through investments by external entrepreneurs (biogas off-farm model). The two models have proven to affect the economies of particular biogas enterprises very differently. In the first model, the support of existing agricultural farms is of great importance as those usually are important for local stakeholders. In the second model, biogas plants that emerge as new external investments must build interactions with local entities from scratch. From an economic point of view, the lack of functioning mechanisms in this sense may influence further directions of development for many rural areas traditionally associated with agriculture.

This paper deals with the issue of former border railway stations (FBRSs) in Poland in the context of their problematic heritage. Since the creation of those borders coincided with the development of the railway network in the 19th century, the FBRSs, now deprived of their past function, remain scattered throughout the landscape as confusing components of a troubled history in an even more confusing contemporaneity. This article assiduously analyses the FBRSs in their capacity as offensive hallmarks vested in inoffensive elements of technical culture, often with high aesthetic value. This is done by departing from a number of analytical lenses: unwanted history, competitive heritage, utility vs. economy, politics and money, and the ‘here and now’ policy. These competing perspectives reveal the intricacy of heritagisation, especially in times of greater ease of obtaining monetary funds aimed at revitalisation: what to revitalise, why and how?

This paper approaches the process of spatial peripheralization from the perspective of concept-induced harm. Harm is both a moral and a legal term construed along any form of physical or mental damage, be it intended or unintended. More broadly, however, harm denotes any form of setback to interest, and while harm can arise as the result of an onset of emotion, more often than not harm is conceptually induced. What this means is that any abstract division or delimitation upheld or enforced by socio-cultural factors will at the same time enable and constrain individual agency in space. In this chapter, I look into how peripheries are created through constraints enforced by forms of spatial planning that are governed by strong conceptual schemata rooted in the rural-urban binary. This is done by exploring the concept of inner peripheries in three diverse European contexts: Toruń (Poland), Skopje (North Macedonia) and Gothenburg (Sweden). Using comparative methodology, the aim of this chapter is to point to the ease with which concept-heavy planning can disrupt geographical homogeneity by creating an inner periphery within. Understanding how oxymorons like inner periphery may become a real – yet unnoticed – challenge for spatial cohesion is important if we truly want to curb interventions that cause concept-induced harm.

Throughout the developed world, rural areas are in economic, social, and visible transition, to a significant degree as a result of urbanization. Realizing that a changing society is in constant need of redefinition, the rural-urban distinction is especially important to look into on a systematic basis. One reason is that although the outdatedness of the rural-urban dichotomy is widely acknowledged it is still largely sustained, not least in rural and urban development policies which are still conducted separately. Such practice may seem questionable in the face of the progressive blurring of these concepts, making them all the more subjective. In that light, there is a need to capture that subjectivity’s logic and anchor it locally, where the effects of policy eventually materialize. As such, taking into account the perception of local residents could help mitigate the subjectivity enclosed in the referential framework of those who exert power, mainly specialists and planners. In this paper, it is assumed that the concepts of rurality and urbanity are not only a result of the changing conditions in particular places but also of the changing theoretical perspectives on what is regarded rural or urban. In result, both tracks equally affect the material – i.e. the very real – lives of people who inhabit these areas. Ultimately, when some seemingly innocuous awareness-shaping processes coupled with the broader concepts of rural and urban are ignored, there may be ramifications when the locally perceived and the centrally defined fail to converge. Consequently, this paper is not about ideas on how ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ areas should be organized and managed. Rather, it foregoes such actions by focusing on the cognitive phase that precedes any kind of labeled development. By assuming a humanistic perspective, the concepts of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are discussed with emphasis on local perception and experiential space as important factors in their current understanding. There are indications that this dimension is locally significant and that the perception of rurality/urbanity is much derived from the physical characteristics of the lived environment, despite the rural and urban having been lately largely regarded as social constructs. In light of the critique of the emergent material turn, the potential of the concept of ‘landscape’ is explored, here seen as a bridge holding together the physical and the subjective tenets of rural-urban awareness. It is argued it could serve as a useful conceptual tool for creating context of the conflicting envoys on how rurality/urbanity should be understood, and particularly so in times of extensive land use changes induced by urbanization.

This paper sets out to draw on my experience as a Sweden-based academic supervisor who is also active in Poland to reflect on the issue of cross-cultural supervision amidst a presumed generational shift that goes on in Poland. Split between stories of a destructive hierarchy and non-transparency in Polish academia on the one hand, and of an emergent “West-minded” reorientation on the other, this paper looks into the cultural idiosyncrasies that have made supervision in Poland tricky for me, if not outright difficult. This paper focuses on the perspectives of ten active PhD supervisors based in Poland. Using questionnaires and interviews the respondents were asked to reflect upon whether a generational shift is underway. This was done by comparing the ideals, attitudes, and behaviours of their past supervisors to those of their own. The results were then analysed through a set of challenges common in cross-cultural supervision and compared to the Swedish context. The findings point to a possible gap between self-assessment of the respondents as progressive and the regressive practices that seem to linger and impact the students. A tentative conclusion is that the long-awaited generational shift in Poland has not yet fully taken root. This is further reflected in how markedly different the culture of supervision in Poland still is from the culture practised in Sweden. The paper points to the difficulty of breaking free from the routines inherited from one’s past-generation supervisors. It also emphasises the benefits of cross-cultural supervision, given that shifts within cultural practices are difficult to perceive and implement while operating within a single cultural ecosystem.

Great social challenges of today, and the conflicts arising therefrom, no longer come one by one. What makes them great is their entanglement in one other and across multiple levels. Similarly, spatial conflicts seldom arise in isolation, but result from simmering tensions that may manifest in a more insidious fashion, namely by appealing to intangible values. This chapter looks into one such spatial conflict in Skopje, which by its scope and content transpires as less spatial than ideological, yet which nonetheless affects space in a negative way. How could Skopje, a vibrant Balkan city spared by the Yugoslav Wars, turn into world’s most polluted city and a ‘megalomaniacal Disneyland’ on the canvas of geopolitical disrepute, staggering corruption and ethnic tensions? To explain the situation, this chapter makes use of the concept of cultural atavism. Its preposition is that when a population’s fundamental existential values are threatened, co-existent tame problems may be left behind in pursuit of primordial yet abstract values. Such dispersion of priorities, however, may create a great social challenge in itself. In Skopje, this was characterized by a pursuit of identity politics in the face of much more tangible problems, like an impending environmental disaster.

In research about degraded towns two cognitive currents can be observed: empirical (what? how? where? when?) and theoretical (why?). Contrarily, no study to date has dealt with the issue of discursivity of its central concept ‘degradation’, i.e. its a priori linguistic characterization determining ways in which research on the subject has been done. As geographers, we are fascinated by the ”real” world, which we wish to explore, examine and present in light of our proudly uncovered spatio-temporal regularities. However, we often tend to forget that while doing so we use specific concepts, which not only determine the choice of our methods, but also – consequently – the quality of our analyses and results. In that vein, before undertaking any kind of research, we need to pay greater attention to the relationship between the concepts we use and the “reality” inadvertently drawn by those concepts. This chapter forms a condensed summary of the main points elaborated in detail and developed theoretically in a separate article on the discursivity of the term “degraded town”. Including this summary in this book was motivated by the need to incorporate at least one text devoted to the discursivity of its key concept and the problems arising from its unreflected usage. For a comprehensive walk-through on the topic, I strongly refer to the main article.

Despite fierce criticisms, ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ still constitute powerful narratives around which we structure our society. The ‘formal reality’, however, frequently disregards the cultural nature of these concepts, elevating them to the role of objective spaces apt to serve as acceptable guiding perspectives. While the analytical inadequacy of rural-urban ideations is well-documented, the phenomenon of formal-cultural conflation remains much less explored. Acknowledging that ideational space of social representations can only exist through the practices of discursive interaction, this paper’s objective is to lay bare the phenomenon of rural-urban thinking when externalized through the little-known practices of ‘degradation’ and ‘restitution’ in Poland. Using conceptual methods, including discourse analysis and historical deconstruction, this paper assays the hidden architectures of formal-cultural conflation by means of a richly contextualized analysis. The findings, presented in four discursive openings, reveal embedded elements of hierarchy, loss, injustice and self-victimization, which may create a divisive culture spawned by elusive promises of development at the cost of misinterpretations of history, local disappointment and cultural segmentation. In conclusion, formal appropriation of historical concepts is likely to engender a cultural geography of discord spun around a largely insignificant division, especially when development-oriented aspects of urbanization become entwined with emotional issues.

This paper discusses how the concept of cultural heritage is currently used in relation to the so-called degraded towns (i.e. deprived of their urban status) in Poland. It shows the role of heritagisation in the process of restitution of urban status, and addresses the effects of the ongoing revitalisation of degraded towns in order to restore their lost urban glory. I argue that the Polish understanding of urbanity is ambiguous, muddling formality with cultural connotations. I address how such convolution both rewrites history and affects modernity by the imposition of values and foreclosures. I also discuss how alterations to the built environment made in the name of cultural heritage (revitalisation) are often conducted with disregard to identity, authenticity and historical hybridity, and how the introduction of ‘history’ into a modern arena affects the local society. I conclude that considering degraded towns as a special form of cultural heritage is a new construction, where coupling of the disconnected dimensions of the Polish understanding of urbanity becomes even more apparent. I stress that this field is neither sufficiently differentiated nor problematised, and that cultural heritage relating to degraded towns is often taken for granted.

W badaniach na temat miast zdegradowanych, można zauważyć podział poszczególnych podejść w zakresie poznawczym na empiryczne (co? jak? gdzie? kiedy?) i teoretyczne (dlaczego?). Jak dotąd, nie podjęte zostały natomiast rozważania na temat dyskursywności pojęcia „degradacji”, czyli jego a priori językowego nacechowania w sposób, który dyktuje specyficzne postępowanie naukowe. Jako geografowie, jesteśmy zafascynowani światem „rzeczywistym” – chcemy go doświadczyć, zbadać, naświetlić pewne prawidłowości czasoprzestrzenne. Zapominamy często jednak, że robimy to za pomocą swoistych pojęć, które nie tylko determinują wybór metod poznawczych, ale także – co za tym idzie – jakość analiz i wyników. Aby lepiej zrozumieć związek między pojęciem a znaczeniem, analiza dyskursu jawi się jako nieocenione narzędzie metodologiczne w geografii postmodernistycznej. Przyjmując zatem analizę dyskursu jako główną metodę, celem niniejszego opracowania jest wskazanie problematycznego charakteru dyskursu degradacji (i restytucji), prezentując go w pięciu ujęciach, którym dotychczas nie poświęcono dostatecznej uwagi. Po pierwsze, dyskurs zakłada niekonwersacyjne istnienie „miasta” i „wsi”; po drugie, zakłada, że „miasto” jest lepsze niż „wieś”; po trzecie, że „degradacja” oznacza stratę; po czwarte, że „degradacja” jest niesprawiedliwa; i wreszcie po piąte, dyskurs degradacji obrazuje kompleks bezosobowej wiktymizacji. Podsumowując, pojęcia „degradacji” i „restytucji” są milczącym potwierdzeniem specyficznej poznawczej tendencji do dualistycznego myślenia, która przez lata indoktrynacji kulturowej stało się znaturalizowane. Krytyczna analiza przeprowadzona w niniejszym opracowaniu stanowi próbę zdekonstruowania dyskursywnych filtrów umocowanych w tych pojęciach, a także krok do sprowokowania nowych dyskusji na ten temat.

Departing from the idea that cultural mechanisms may be capable of allowing for conceptual dichotomies to create oppression, this paper addresses the concepts of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ as potentially counterproductive ideas in policy and planning when deployed in areas of severe social deprivation. This issue is addressed in the context of a recently finalized development project, whose focus swiftly shifted from ‘urban’ to ‘rural’. It is argued that these concepts are not neutral spatial designators but problematic filters added to the already problematic concept of ‘social sustainability’. Here I draw on the principle of iatrogenesis, which denotes any benevolent action that inadvertently produces negative outcomes. The principle applies when the target area lacks the presumed conceptual foundation for a specific brand of top-down action (‘rural’ or ‘urban’). While labeling projects by the likes of ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ may pass unnoticed in certain circumstances, when deployed as a panacea for general development and thrust into outposts of deprivation, the high odds of failure and potential induction of harm require closer attention. In a wish to abandon essentialism to contingency, this paper looks into whether the rural-urban binary could be a cultural burden so incompatible with the layered realities of advanced deprivation that instead of helping the deprived, it deprives the help of its carrying capacity. I conclude that a more context-sensitive understanding of the human condition beyond inflexible labeling could help arrive at more accurate interventions.

This paper deals with the problem of making group work and individual achievement meet in the context of combined examination at universities The underlying idea of this research derives from the policy that is increasingly gaining power at many university departments, namely that it is inappropriate to examine students on the basis of group work alone, while at the same time limited departmental resources cannot allow for increasing the number of individual examinations. This paper attempts to square this paradox by elaborating on new ways to individualize compulsory group work so that it fulfils both formal and educational objectives, but also so it feels meaningful, motivative and fair to the students. This multifaceted challenge is captured in a novel methodological approach named “captaining”. By drawing on existing theoretical frameworks, own experiences and subsequent evaluation, “captaining” is presented as a promising alternative to the individualism vs. collectivism dilemma, as well as to extra-educational factors impacting the implementation of best examination practices.

Although the outdatedness of the rural-urban dichotomy is widely acknowledged, the rural-urban distinction is still largely sustained. Moreover, with a plethora of aspects to define these two concepts, in practice only a few are effectively taken into account when formulating policies for rural/urban development respectively. Such conduct might seem questionable in the face of the progressive blurring of these concepts, making them all the more subjective. In that light, the logics of such subjectivity should be captured and anchored locally, where the effects of policy become directly tangible. Using examples from formally rural yet largely de-agrarized settlements in Poland this paper discusses the concepts of ‘rural and ‘urban’ by emphasizing local perception and experiential space as important factors in their current understanding. Field studies and discussions in local media indicate that this dimension is locally significant and that the sense of rurality/urbanity is much derived from the physical characteristics of the lived environment rather than from its mere degree of socio-economic development (despite the latter being at the center of debate). There are also suggestions that divergence between the locally perceived and the centrally defined concept of rural/urban (along with the specific paths of development the latter entails) may result in popular discontent. This paper suggests that in order to better understand and to more efficiently conceptualize the ‘new rural’ (particularly in a cross-cultural context), more attention should be paid to the perception of the locals, concurrently striving for a greater convergence between the generic, the experiential and the emotional.