Discussing inequalities from the periphery

Recently, the Hungarian Geographical Bulletin – that had been a forum for introducing empirically focused papers covering various social and physical geographical issues for decades – became engaged increasingly in academic discourses on socio-spatial inequalities, embracing various approaches and problems with diff erent scalar foci. The theoretical and methodological diversity that ranged from classical spatial analysis through humanistic geography to critical structuralism and post-structuralism represented a shift not only toward a conceptual openness in geographical discourses but also to a (more) socially engaged research agenda. This multiplicity and the ‘internationalisation’ of the journal – the switch for English language and the growing number of international authors – involved the Bulletin in academic discourses revolving around the major problems of socio-spatial polarisation, marginality, dependence and exclusion in European and also in global context. This special issue is meant to contribute to these ongoing debates on the diverse forms, contexts and processes of the (re)production of socio-spatial polarisation – form a Central and East European perspective, bringing authors together from various institutions and countries working together in the Marie Curie ITN project ‘Socio-economic and Political Responses to Regional Polarisation in Central and Eastern Europe’ (RegPol2)2. Socio-spatial inequalities that manifested at multiple scales along various (economic, demographic, social, environmental, political, etc.) dimensions in Europe and deepened further as a consequence of the recent crisis have raised criticism towards the neoliberalisation of principles and institutional practices of European and national policies, as well as towards the scholarly concepts that underpinned them. A growing body of academic research focused on socio-spatial polarisation – including East-West diff erences – explaining the process in the context of the global capital fl ows, European division of labour and of imbalanced power relations (in economy, politics and knowledge production) driving political discourses on development and cohesion and thus, the social construction of cores and peripheries (see e.g. Smith, A. and Pickles, J. 1998; Smith, A. and Timár, J. 2010; Hajdimichalis, C. 2011; Ehrlich, K. et al. 2012; Hirt, S. et al. 2013). Moreover, series of studies focused on daily social practices at local scale in transition societies – revealing, how peripherality and marginality is experienced and responded to – raised a concern with agency and socio-cultural (historical) diversity in spaces labelled ‘backward’ or ‘peripheral’ in popular and political discourses (see e.g. Hörschelmann, K. 2001; Váradi, M. 2005; Stenning, A. et al. 2011; Nagy, E. et al. 2015). The evolving debates on macrostructural processes, discourses and daily lives (re-)producing unevenness stimulated the critical revision of embedded concepts of centrality, peripherality, polarisation and peripheralisation, raising arguments for relational thinking Discussing inequalities from the periphery