Conference paper
Round table: "Settlements network in a networked society: Social changes and changes in regional space in some transitional countries" Held on the 2nd of June 2006, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb
Dušica Seferagić
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Nikola Skledar
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Alija Hodžić
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Antun Petak
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Ljubinko Pušić
; Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Novom Sadu
Milan Župančić
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Anđelina Svirčić Gotovac
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Marjan Hočevar
; Fakulteta za družbene vede u Ljubljani
Ivan Cifrić
; Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu
Sreten Vujović
; Filozofski fakultet u Beogradu
Zdravko Mlinar
; Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti
Jasenka Kodrnja
; Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu
Miodrag Vujošević
; Institut za arhitekturu i urbanizam Srbije
Ksenija Petovar
; Arhitektonski fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu
Zvonko Mlinar
; Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti
Anka Mišetić
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar
Abstract
The round table Settlements network in a networked society: Social
changes and changes in regional space in some transitional countries took
place on the 2nd of June 2006 at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb. The
round table was organized by the Group for research of the regional space, village
and town from the Institute that associated it with their own research project: Sociological
aspects of the settlements network in the context of transition (2002 - 2005).
The said project and the round table were subsidized by the Ministry of Science, Education
and Sports. The round table was divided into two parts. The first part The
Settlements Network in the Networked Society included the discussion on the speciai
theme edition (169/2005) Sociology of Viliage Sociological Aspects of the Settlements
Network resulting out of this project, while the second consisted of the discussion on
Protagonists of Social Changes in Regional Space in Croatia and in our neighboring
transitional countries such as Slovenia and Serbia, as well. The participants from
Slovenia were professor Zdravko Mlinar (Ljubljana), Ph.D. and Marjan Hoćevar,
Ph.D. (Ljubljana) and from Serbia Ksenija Petovar, Ph.D. (Belgrade), Sreten Vujović,
Ph.D. (Belgrade), Miodrag Vujošević, Ph.D (Belgrade) and Ljubinko Pušić, Ph.D.
(Novi Sad). Besides the participants from the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb,
the participants from some other institutions were also invited - from the Faculty of
Philosophy, Institute of Social Sciences "Ivo Pilar" from Zagreb, University Study
Center for Social Work at the Law Faculry in Zagreb and Ministry of Environmental
Protection, Physical Planning and Construction and also some individuals.
OI
Two groups of papers related to the phenomenon of networked society and the
settlements network were published in the special theme edition Sociology of Village
=Sociological Aspects of Village Network. The first group consists of the papers
resulted from the said research project Sociological aspects of the settlements network
in the context of transition where were published five original papers made
by three authors - Alija Hodžić, Dušica Seferagić and Milan Župančić. Another
group consists of five topically related papers by six foreign authors - Marjan
Hočevar and Zdravko Mlinar from Slovenia, Ksenija Petovar and Ljubinko Pušić
from Serbia and Zoran Roca and Maria de Nazare Oliveira Roca from Portugal. The conference was opened and coordinated by Dušica Sefaragič, Ph.D. and Alija
Hodžić, MD. Alija Hodžić, MD (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) and Antun
Petak (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) o also made the keynote speeches with detailed reports on the project and its results, After that followed the reports by
Ljubinko Pušić, Ph.D. (Novi Sad) on the situation in Serbia and Voivodina in the
period of transition and changes in urban and rural spaces there. Milan Župančić
(Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) presented the situation in the past years in
Croatia from the aspects of the rural milieu. After that Andelina Svirćić Gotovac,
MD (Zagreb, Institute for Social Research) made ashort presentation of her MD
thesis on the quality of life in the Zagreb settlements network and Marjan Hočevar,
Ph.D. (Ljubljana) spoke about globalization conditions within the existing settlements
network in Slovenia and in the world context. The first topically related part
was followed by a creative discussion in which many speakers and participants
took part (Cifrić, Vujović, Mlinar, Kodrnja, Seferagić, Vujošević, Petovar, Pušić,
Hodžić and others), The most interesting presentations and discussions were those
on the socio - regional space discourse (Pušić, Vujović, Vujošević, Cifrić, Hodžić
and others) that question the past approach es to the regional space "of Western-
centric type" and an obsolete concept of division between rural and urban,
having in mind that the real changes in the regional space have shown the
interpenetration of these spaces and of categories as well which can not explain
the new occurrences in the regional space any more.
The second part of the round table with the ma in topic Protagonists of Social
Changes in the Regional Space was incited by a research proposal of the Group for
the regional space, village and town of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb to
the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, and it was also based on previous researches
that have shown that social space is the arena of confrontations and competitions
of various protagonists aiming at achieving certain goa ls. In the new context
the protagonists are all those entities that by their acting and interacting affect social
changes and development in a certain space, from the local and regional rnilieu to
the national and global level. They influence using the space, social structuring, spatial
and social mobility, population density and morpbology of the settlements. Different
protagonists use different resources, sources of power and competences. Croatia
has been (as well as other countries in transition) suddenly affected by globalization
processes, which, under the influence of neoliberalism, set forth the requirements of
deregulation, openness, and social and spatial flexibility. The presumption is that we
are facing right now a process of an increasing influence of global protagonists and
a diminishing impact of govemmental regulation at various levels of spatial organization
of society. At the local level it is manifested the most through the confrontation
of the traditional and modem and this is a challenge for different local protagonists
to join the trends of globalization. This inevitably leads to the new restructuring in
the regional space. The towns and regions that, with the ir intellectual capital and IT
competence, can integrate into a global and hierarchically networked society
(Castells, Soja, Sassen), will advance quicker. There is a strong concentration of financial
power, information, culturai capital in the megapolises and world metropolises,
but this does not necessary exclude the activities of some more penetrating 10-
cal protagonists in the urban and rural area (Mendras). This is the reason why the
objective of future researches should be the recognition of the different types of the
protagonists that by their acting and interacting create new forms of social structure,
changes in the space, functioning of town, village and local community. The subject matter of the first presentation by professor Zdravko Milinar, Ph.D.
(Ljubljana) comprised the various theoretic approaches dealing with the protagonnists and structures in the physical and virtual space. He quoted many examples,
with a stress on the city of Koper. After that Sreten Vujović, Ph.D. (Belgrade) spoke
about a division and influence of different protagonists in urban areas today on the
case of Serbia. Ksenija Petovar, Pb.D. spoke about many so-called usurpations and
malversations in the space and the negativities that they bring, also on the case of
Serbia. Anka Mišetić, Ph.D. (Zagreb, Ivo Pilar Institute) presented a specific exarnple
from the Croatian rural settlements network on the research of the present situation
in the villages of Lonjsko polje as a part of the European and world settlements
network. The second part of the round table also set off an ardent discussion
of many participants - Miodrag Vujoševič, Ljubinko Pušić, Sreten Vujović,
Dušica Seferagić, Andelina Svirčić Gotovac, Zdravko Mlinar, Alija Hodžić, Marjan
Hočevar, Antun Petak etc.
The presentation and discussions showed the similarities and differences of the
three countries: Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia (which have also existed before) in a
European and global context. Slovenia is a highly urbanized country with the highest
standard of living. The thesis of M. Hočevar of an inclination of the Slovenians
to a rural way of life can be questioned but also explained by the urbanization of
the whole territory, physical availability of all urban goods and excellent traffic
connections. Croatia has a pyramidal settlements network with Zagreb as the metropolis
on top, three macro-regional centers, a number of medium-size towns and
many small towns and numerous smail villages. The latter don't show the developmental
potentials due to the centralization policy and the inertness of local protagonists
as well. Serbia is by and large leaned on its capital Belgrade that stiil attracts
the most of the inhabitants from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the
provinces are decaying. Besides Belgrade, only Novi Sad stands out as the capital
of Voivodina, although Voivodina is more urbanized than Serbia proper ("narrower"
Serbia). The quality of life, especiaily in Belgrade, shows huge disparities
intensified by irregular and neoliberal doings of the protagonists in the regional
space. The similar but less emphasized statement can be applied to Zagreb as well.
The question of the settlements network in the three above mentioned transitional
countries depends on the degree of the ir general social development but also on
various concepts of development of the regional space: policentricity in Slovenia,
pyramidality in Croatia and monocephality in Serbia.
We hope that this conferenee will help the future cooperation of the scholars from
the countries that, as it was seen here, shared the similar problems and similar transitional
destiny and after that entered the rough neoliberal systems. Each of the
present countries is specific in its own way, so the intention is to explain the present
situation in them and make the problems of the networked space, respectively,
current society as a whole, actual.
Keywords
round table; settlements network; networked society; transition; postsocialist transformation; transitional countries
Hrčak ID:
93759
URI
Publication date:
26.10.2006.
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