Title Long-Term War-Induced Transformations of Settlement and Land-Use Systems: Regimes of Scientific Recognition and Research Patterns
Author(s) Anna Tymoshenko
Affiliation Pollution and Diseases
Country Ukraine
Contribution type case study; empirical study; conceptual paper
Thematic area • Theory, Methodology, and Evidence• War and Land-Use Systems
Conference framework connection • Analytical Track AT-01 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-02 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-03 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-04 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-05 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-06 — provisional title to be defined• Analytical Track AT-07 — provisional title to be defined
Abstract Military conflicts are commonly examined through immediate destruction, displacement, demographic loss, and post-war recovery. Far less attention is given to cumulative transformations of settlement and land-use systems that become visible only across several decades or longer. This paper examines that research gap through the concept of regimes of scientific recognition: historically situated configurations that influence which problems become legitimate objects of research, which forms of evidence are connected, and which long-term consequences remain fragmented or institutionally invisible.
Methodologically, the paper combines conceptual analysis, long-duration historical reconstruction, and critical examination of patterns of scientific reflection. Crimea is used as an illustrative longitudinal case extending from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The analytical sequence includes the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the civil-war period, the Second World War, Russia’s occupation of Crimea beginning in 2014, and continuing military activity affecting the peninsula. These episodes are treated not as unrelated historical events, but as successive disturbances acting upon the same territorial system.
The central hypothesis is that war-induced transformations of settlement and land-use systems possess a morphology expressed through recurring spatial forms, shifts in population distribution, changes in the functional use of territory, path dependence, and delayed effects. These features cannot be adequately identified through short-term analysis or conflict-by-conflict description. However, the scientific literature often remains organised around unique cases, national historiographies, individual wars, and immediate reconstruction problems. This fragmentation limits comparative analysis and prevents the formation of a cumulative research programme.
The paper therefore shifts attention from war-related consequences alone to the scientific conditions under which those consequences are, or are not, recognised. It asks how expert communities select temporal scales, delimit cases, and separate demographic, territorial, agricultural, urban, and environmental changes that may form parts of a single long-term process. Crimea is proposed not as complete empirical proof, but as a critical case for developing a comparative morphology of war-induced settlement and land-use transformation.
Key points • The long-term effects of war on settlement and land-use systems are insufficiently captured by short-term studies of individual conflicts.
• A comparative morphology is needed to identify recurring spatial forms, path dependencies, and delayed territorial consequences across successive military disruptions.
• Crimea provides a critical longitudinal case because several major conflicts and military-political ruptures have affected the same territorial system since the mid-nineteenth century.
• The concept of regimes of scientific recognition helps explain why relevant evidence may remain divided among disciplines, historical periods, and isolated case studies rather than becoming an integrated research programme.
Keywords war; settlement systems; land-use systems; Crimea; long-term transformation; morphology; scientific recognition; critical reconstruction
Main discussion question Why have the long-term morphological transformations of settlement and land-use systems remained weakly developed as a comparative field despite the extensive historical record of wars and their profound demographic and territorial consequences, and which regimes of scientific recognition have contributed to this fragmentation?
OJS publication link https://pollution-diseases-ojs.org/index.php/pd/article/view/54
Note. Analytical TracksIn addition to the main thematic areas, the conference programme will include several cross-cutting analytical tracks. These tracks will be defined during the preparation of the programme, based on the submitted abstracts and the emerging links between presentations.At the preliminary stage, abstracts may be assigned to provisional analytical tracks marked as AT-01 to AT-07. Final track titles will be announced after the Scientific Committee has reviewed the submitted materials.