Proměny přístupů ke konceptualizaci venkovského prostoru v rurálních studiích =Changing Approaches to the Conceptualisation of Rural Space in Rural Studies

Abstract

The article focuses on various approaches to conceptualising rural space within the evolution of (in particular British) rural studies. The overview starts with the functional definitions (descriptive and socio-cultural) typical for the positivist and modern period of rural studies. Descriptive and sociocultural definitions derive from the rural-urban dichotomy or continuum, and the rural space is defined in relation to cities as non-urban space. Since the 1980s the political-economic approach has significantly influenced rural studies, transformed them into a more critical science, and introduced a definition of the rural as a locality. This definition, however, only became accepted when it was combined with a definition of the rural as social representation. That definition is a product of the cultural turn in rural studies that has occurred since the 1990s, when post-modern and post-structural approaches penetrated rural studies and promoted fruitful scholarly discussion that then positioned rural geography firmly among other geographical sub-disciplines. Current hybrid approaches to the conceptualisation of rural space combine both material and ideational definitions of the rural and include also rural practices, through which the material and the ideational rural are interlinked.