Social space and group life‐styles in rural manitoba

TLDR: In this paper, the authors used objective and subjective techniques to test the contention of the French school of social geographers that subcultural groups have their own specific social space, which reflects their values, preferences, and aspirations.

Abstract: Selected behaviour patterns of Hutterite and non-Hutterite farmers were investigated, using objective and subjective techniques, to test the contention of the French school of social geographers that subcultural groups have their own specific social space, which reflects their values, preferences, and aspirations. The objective data indicated that behavioural differences exist in a hierarchy of spaces ranging from small scale ‘familial’ space to a larger ‘recreational’ space. Similar subcultural variations were shown by a cognitive mapping procedure. This revealed a different rural knowledge space for the two study groups, which can be taken as a surrogate for their overall social space. Des aspects choisis de comportement d'un groupe de Hutterites et d'autres fermiers ont ete examines. Des methodes objectives et subjectives ont ete utilisees pour eprouver l'hypothese de l'ecole francaise de geographie sociale que des groupes culturels aient leurs propres espaces sociales refletant leurs valeurs, preferences, et aspirations. Les donnees objectives demontrent que des differences de comportement existent dans une hierarchie spatiale variant de l'espace restreint de « famille» jusqu'a l'espace etendu de « recreation ». Des variations culturelles semblables ont ete montrees par la methode de cartographie cognitive qui a decele pour chacun des deux groupes un espace de familiarite rurale different qui peut se subsister a l'espace social general.