Geographical research facing challenges of interdisciplinarity of studies on development

Geographical studies on the development represent a proposal for a integration of some of research topics undertaken by both physical and human geography. Their aim is to analyze the social and economic processes through the prism of natural conditions and their position in particular spaces. Such an assumption makes that the main object of the researchers are the relationships and spatial phenomena of development and underdevelopment. The concept of geography of development was introduced to geography by Jürgen Blenck in 1979. In the center of the geographical studies on development Blenck puts society that occupying a defined space of the specific conditions of the natural environment are creating a network of relations that will either lead to the development or inhibit this process. Blenck postulated the concentration of geography of development on the investigation of processes of development and underdevelopment of specific pieces of geographical space and not strictly on developing countries, as it has been done previously. Thus, there has been a change of paradigm of geographical research from purely spatial analyzes of differences of phenomena and processes to the socio-cultural causes of underdevelopment and differentiation of living standards. Geography began to use to explain the spatial aspects of the development the theories and concepts borrowed from the social sciences and economics. It emerged the need for interdisciplinary research on development directed to the micro-regional analysis. At the same time incorporating of geography into the debate about globalization – its conditions and environmental, social, economic, cultural and political effects gave impetus to the discussion on the broader spatial level, on the sclae of large geographic regions and globally. Artykuł stanowi krótki przegląd koncepcji badań geograficznych nad krajami rozwijającymi się. Autorka analizuje ewolucję podejścia do kwestii rozwoju w badaniach geograficznych – od geografii krajów rozwijających się do geograficznych badań nad rozwojem i zastanawia się, jakie obecnie jest miejsce geografii rozwoju w polskich analizach na temat globalnego Południa. Wskazuje również na powiązanie podejść geograficznych z innymi w ramach nauk społecznych. Nawiązuje w tym do interdyscyplinarności analiz rozwoju i niedorozwoju w krajach globalnego Południa.