Socio-geographical Research Research Articles

Особенности организации территориальной рекреационной системы на особо охраняемых природных территориях Республики Крым

The structure of the organization of territorial recreational system of specially protected natural territories of the Crimea Republic is demonstrated. The features of the sectoral and territorial organization of the recreational system of specially protected natural areas in the region are described. The reunification of the Crimea with Russia pulls broad prospects for the development of recreational activities within the protected areas. Of particular relevance is consideration of the particular sectoral and territorial organization in the transition period of Crimea recreation in the legislative field of the Russian Federation and the prospects for its further development. Considering the features of the organization of recreational activities in the protected areas of the Crimea, noted a wide range of works on recreational geography of Crimea. Territorial recreational system within protected areas can be represented as a historically established combination of interconnected components of diverse environmental and recreational sector, formed in the natural-ecological and socio-economic environment of the region to maintain the prevailing environmental functions of territories and comfortable environment in which the recreational functions within the protected areas can be performed. Sectoral structure ofTerritorial recreational system has a rather complex structure and is largely dependent on the type of protected area and a set of constraints of environmental management and conservation within it. In the sectoral structure distinguished are three possible units: tourism and recreation, the complex of public services´ sectors, the complex of related industries. In terms of socio-geographical research the components of sectoral and territorial system T of Territorial recreational system must ensure the optimal geo-ecological and socio-economic mix of the functions of protected areas and to provide a contribution to sustainable development of the regions, providing the co-adaptation of the natural and recreational systems, increasing the level of environmental and recreational development of the territory.

«AXIOMS» FOR RESEARCH THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE AS A SUBJECT OF GEOGRAPHICAL POLEMIC

The paper is devoted to the theoretical understanding of the general principles of cultural landscape studies. In the English-speaking cultural geography such principles are called «axioms», they widely discussed over the past three decades. Analysis of the discussion, focusing on the impact of the application of the humanistic and neo-Marxist «axioms» for reading of the cultural landscape, allowed concluding that there are the fundamental differences of their research areas, the irreducibility of each other and the high value of each approach in the context of their own research. Russian cultural geography needs to assimilate the interobjective and intersubjective approaches to cultural landscapes represented in the foreign science, and to develop their own theoretical platform. The necessity of expanding the sphere of socio-geographical research areas for improvements «axioms» for reading the cultural landscape, and the introduction of new principles, that take into account the dynamism of society and territory. The ways of combining theoretically contrasting principles of research are proposed. The study proved, that the synthesis neo-Marxist and humanistic-geographical approaches to the study of the cultural landscape of modern Russia will be very fruitful perspective.

The spatial production of a border-crossing civil society in Görlitz and Zgorzelec. A German point of view

Abstract After decades of uncertainty and continuous change to the border regime since the split-up of Görlitz into a German part west of the river Neisse, and a Polish part called Zgorzelec after the Second World War, both towns established the self-designated European City Görlitz-Zgorzelec in 1998. Although journalists and politicians maintain that Görlitz and Zgorzelec are a case model for European integration, there are obvious differences between the visions connected to the project ‘European City’ and the everyday life. Following the key research question, whether the ‘European City Görlitz-Zgorzelec’, in its attempts to develop a border-crossing civil society, is also constructed from below by citizens on both sides of the border, my contribution to the field of border studies uses a qualitative micro-level approach to these processes in the fields of culture, leisure and education. For that aim, an ethnographically inspired socio-geographical research design has been linked to Henri Lefebvre’s theoretical framework of the double triad of spatial production developed in The Production of Space (1991). From the perspective of actors in civil society in both towns, who are active in constructing, shifting and deconstructing borders, the article aims to illuminate both territorial and social bordering processes. Borderwork is embedded in and connected to transformation and peripheralisation processes, as well as to the discourses on and the funding instruments of European Integration in the context of the complex history of the Polish-German border.

Geographical determinants of the quality of life in Siberia

Central to socio-geographical research is the principle of determinism which provides a means for analyzing the development patterns of social systems in the context of their geographical location and natural and territorial factors that are responsible for the geographical heterogeneity of social phenomena and processes reflecting the quality of human life.