The concept of ‘rural’ as a psychosocial process: From concept attainment to concept unlearning

Mirek Dymitrow

doi:10.2478/quageo-2019-0036

Mirek Dymitrow

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.2478/quageo-2019-0036

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Abstract

AbstractRealising that human geography has been defined less by its canonical works but rather by its canonical concepts, the current status of the concept ‘rural’ puts a question mark over progress in human geography in terms of how well we have been able to adapt knowledge to reciprocate with societal change at large. As one of the oldest geographical concepts still in widespread use, ‘rural’ stands in stark contrast to the immense changes encountered by the society during the last century, let alone decades. And while this problem has been approached both empirically and philosophically, not enough stress has been put on the cognitive and sociological processes that have governed the attainment and retention of ‘rural’ in science, and beyond. In this vein, the aim of this paper is to provide a structured argument for facilitating a view of ‘rural’ less as a geographical space and more as a concept purportedly thought to define such space by way of inculcation.

Highlights

The term rural studies is a heterogeneous designator, meaning different things to different people
Realising that human geography has been defined less by its canonical works but rather by its canonical concepts, the current status of the concept ‘rural’ puts a question mark over progress in human geography in terms of how well we have been able to adapt knowledge to reciprocate with societal change at large
The aim of this paper is to provide a structured argument for facilitating a view of ‘rural’ less as a geographical space and more as a concept purportedly thought to define such space by way of inculcation

Summary

Introduction

The term rural studies is a heterogeneous designator, meaning different things to different people. Fast-paced transformations in the environmental, economic and social dimensions have rendered the rural/ urban binary a contentious one – a conceptual vestige of sorts, whose blurred and malleable characteristics, immense spatial coverage and aspectual all-inclusiveness have come to form an odd marriage between bygone world views and a globalised 21st-century reality of interconnectedness (cf Dymitrow 2018 for a historical overview of the constancy of critique towards ‘rural/ urban’). This intricacy is entangled in a compound argument that forms the rationale of this paper. I will develop on the first of these three fundamental notions of concept attainment, and how it is played out with regard to the concept of ‘rural’ explicitly and on rural studies implicitly

Methodological note

On the constitution of concepts

Understanding rural stereotypes and prototypes

Conclusion