REGIONAL IDENTITY AS EXAMPLE OF HUMAN AND SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE RURAL PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF CZECHIA

Tomáš Havlíček, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

In Europe, human capital can be continually understood as a critical factor of further development of rural peripheral areas (Labrianidis 2006). Therefore, the differences between rich central areas and poor peripheral rural ones have been getting deeper and deeper in Europe. Which is, in this context, the situation of peripheral rural areas in Czechia and which part does regional identity play here (Paasi 2003)? Regional identity is not understood here as national or state identity generally predominating in Europe, but as identity of a certain smaller territory, i.e. region or micro-region. Regional identity will be studied on the example of several selected rural marginal territories in the post-totalitarian society in Czechia. Due to politically motivated pressures on regional identity in the period of the communist dictatorship, the regional identity has changed and former traditions and links have been disturbed, differently from regions that had been developing freely. This phenomenon can be observed for instance in border areas of homogenous regions which are divided by a political border, as it is the case of the Czech-Austrian borderland. Also the phenomenon of integration of Czechia and of its rural peripheral regions into European structures (EU) will be studied, i.e. formation of the so-called European identity. The world has been changing from territorially rooted societies to a society of networks and interactions (Castells 1999), i.e. from space of places to space of flows and this “new” development has an impact on the Czech peripheral rural areas as well.