Németh, Sarolta | Finland and Hungary

 Németh, Sarolta | Finland and Hungary
 

Sarolta Németh is a Hungarian geographer from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Regional Studies, University of Joensuu, Finland. She did her undergraduate studies at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE) where she graduated with an MSc in Geography and an MA in English. She started her doctoral work at the Institute of Geography in Budapest, but a year after she continued it in Joensuu. After having completed her doctoral dissertation titled Information Society Working for Inclusiveness: Scales, Actors, and Peripheral Regions (VDM-Verlag, 2009) she received her PhD degree in 2008. Besides and often linked to her individual research activities, she has been involved in teaching, rural development projects with NGOs, and transnational research projects, e.g. within the ESPON programme. Currently she is developing her individual post-doc project, focussing on rural networking of various actors for the promotion of decentralised renewable energy production, for a more sustainable rural development. She is interested also in the adaptation and adoption of ICT solutions by these actors in support of these activities. Her first case study is related to eastern Finland; and she is at IAS-STS to enrich her theoretical perspectives and methodological toolkit, and to find opportunities to collaborate with other researchers in Europe interested in this topic.

 

Project at IAS-STS: Rural socio-technological networks along the renewable energy production chain

Many rural-peripheral regions have been caught in a vicious circle of marginalization. The diminishing prospects for financially feasible agri-/silvicultural activities and the lack of alternative jobs cause the emigration of especially the higher qualified active population and this regional brain-drain causes tax revenues to decline. This leads to diminishing infrastructural investments, which in turn, further depletes the region’s attractiveness. However, some rural areas may be able to reverse this cycle by innovative restructuring and adaptation to emerging conditions: the renewable energy sector is able to open good prospects in this situation. The main question of my research is: what could be a suitable social (societal-institutional, technological, development-political) framework which can ensure that these potential prospects are actually realised?

Eastern Finland has encountered these problems. Global changes (internationalising forest industry, rising energy prices, climate change, and technological innovations) are having a profound effect on this agro-forest economy and society; also, they are stimulating innovation in different ways. This process is embedded in the context that here forests are not only a main source of income and principal environment of economic activities but also an important and lasting part of regional and cultural identity, social relations and traditions. The social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions and consequences of the recent globally experienced transformations are interrelated. As a result, many challenges have arisen, but also several opportunities are offered to the actors engaged in regional/local development.

My focus is on different networks, co-operation forms, ranging from business, knowledge and technological to more informal social networks – relating them, as a key assumption, to the possible emergence of ’networked peripheries’, developing potentially in other parts of Europe, too.

 

Selected publications

2009 Networking for renewables: local resources and innovative technologies in rural development. Paper prepared for the 9th Conference of the European Sociological Association, 2-5 Sept. 2009, Lisbon. (CD)

2009 Information Society Working for Inclusiveness: Scales, Actors and Peripheral Regions. (Doctoral dissertation monograph, 256 p.) VDM-Verlag.

2009 The networks behind. Finnish and Hungarian rural-local initiatives and their joint efforts in and for the Information Society. In: Kjell Andersson, Erland Eklund, Minna Lehtola and Pekka Salmi (eds.), Beyond the rural-urban divide. Comparative perspectives on the differentiated countryside and its regulation. Emerald Group Publishing.

2008 Social Capital and ICTs in Local Development: The Case of the Hungarian Telecottage Movement. In: Gareth Jones, Walter Leimgruber, Etienne Nel (eds.), Issues in Geographical Marginality. Papers presented during the Meetings of the Commission on Evolving Issues of Geographical Marginality in the early 21st century world (published on CD). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, ISBN 9780868104416.