Towards „place”. The countryside awaking

Abstract

A case study of local communities developing good practices in the field of self-development, social self-organisation, reconstruction of the local and wider, regional, identity of, including the identity of the „place” is an important way to discover the essence of the social world, as well as to attempt to understand the specific features of „rurality” in its new contexts and interpretations. This helps develop the dialectical relationship between what is being discovered, namely the local community, and the discoverer, a person aware of and involved in the attempt to understand the mechanism of social change. In 2016, a group of researchers from different scientific centres undertook to write a work entitled Tożsamość i „miejsce”. Budzenie uśpionego potencjału wsi (Identity and „place”. The countryside awaking). The basis for the selection of rural settlements from a large group was therefore a subjective decision of the people, who want to share their emotions and experiences in contact with a specific local community in its living environment. The descriptions of the specificity and uniqueness of the village presented here stem from team members’ need to share numerous thoughts and impressions, and are a presentation of good practices in local development. These works are a kind of affirmation of local rural environments, an original idea for interpretation based on Humanities Research, including a look at the processes that make up the contemporary village through the prism of „place”.