U.S.- Czech Research on Knowledge Systems Affecting Rural Landscapes in the Czech Republic and the U.S. Midwest

这个由密苏里-哥伦比亚大学的J. Sandford Rikoon和捷克景观生态学研究所的Miloslav Lapka合作的美国-捷克项目将对两个工业化国家——美国和捷克共和国的私营农民的知识系统和知识社区进行比较分析。努力将强调社会文化和政治经济方法的综合，目的是促进对影响景观的人类行为的全面和综合理解。整体合作将受益于捷克和美国参与者在使用分析工具（如用于社会、文化、经济和环境数据空间表示的地理信息系统）方面的专业知识所采用的多学科、宏观层面的定性方法。为了更好地理解生态、社会和经济系统之间的交集，研究人员选择了一个分水岭作为主要的分析单位。预期结果将对与知识创造有关的动态提供新的见解，并可能有助于分析知识库的比较方法，在这种情况下，这些知识库将与人类生态学有关。这个社会学项目通过使美国和东欧的顶尖专家结合互补的人才和汇集共同感兴趣和能力的领域的研究资源，实现了推进科学知识的计划目标。?？

INT 9722539 Rikoon This U.S.-Czech project between J. Sandford Rikoon of the University of Missouri-Columbia and Miloslav Lapka of the Czech Institute of Landscape Ecology will feature a comparative analysis of the knowledge systems and knowledge communities of private farmers in two industrialized countries, the United States and the Czech Republic. Efforts will emphasize a synthesis of sociocultural and political economy approaches with the intent of contributing to a comprehensive and syncretic understanding of human behaviors impacting on the landscape. The overall collaboration will benefit from a multi-disciplinary, macro-level qualitative methodology employed by the Czechs and the U.S. participants' expertise in use of analytical tools such as geographic information systems for spatial representations of social, cultural, economic and environmental data. To better understand intersections between ecological, social and economic systems, the researchers have chosen a watershed as the primary unit of analysis. Results are expected to offer new insights into the dynamics associated with knowledge creation and may contribute to comparative methodologies for analyzing knowledge bases which, in this case, will pertain to human ecology. This project in sociology fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling leading experts in the Untied States and Eastern Europe to combine complementary talents and pool research resources in areas of strong mutual interest and competence. ??