Original scientific paper
The Network of Settlements in Networked Society
Alija Hodžić
; Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author examines presumptions for the construction of a contemporary network of settlements in Croatia. He founds these
presumptions in the effects of socialist modernization through which
a predominantly rural society was transformed into a relatively developed industrial society on one hand, and in processes of globalization that the contemporary Croatian society has been involved in, on the other. The process of transformation of the post-socialist society is being treated as the process which, by its
scope and intensity, radicalizes and universalizes the modernity that
has been achieved by the up-till-now development. The strategies of
transformation, which the resources created through socialist modernization are being evaluated through the way they are used, are re-structuring the existing network of settlements which is characterized by polarization: the process through which not only the
number of smaller (rural) settlements is growing but also the number
of bigger (urban) ones. Yet, the significantly greater decrease in
number of agricultural than of rural population points at interdependence among the settlements, and in this respect they should not be observed as individual territorial units but as the network of settlements covering the entire national space and being
integrated in the networked society produced by the processes of
globalization. This paper represents a theoretical approach towards the research of the re-structuring of the network of settlements, transformation of social structure and mobility in conditions of transition, as well as of the jobs flexibilization, i.e. it is the framework
for the analysis of the family, educational and newly established class
structure as well of the jobs flexibilization and mobility made upon the results of a research carried out in 2004 on the representative stratified sample of adult population of Croatia (2.220 respondents), and the results of which are published in other two articles by the same author in this issue of the Rural Sociology quarterly. Given that
contemporary society is being constituted around the flows of capital,
information, technology, organizational interaction etc., the author is
particularly dealing with the new spatial form of networked society showing that spatial organization, inhabitation, forms of inhabitation in the conditions of modernity have been subject to constant changes, to
dynamism of the entire social re-structuring.
Keywords
modernization; globalization: flexibilization; strategies of transformation; network of settlements
Hrčak ID:
33265
URI
Publication date:
10.3.2009.
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