Lyubichankovsky A.V. The geography of mentality as an ethological geography: subject-object analysis

Abstract

In modern social geography, a lacuna of mental-geographical problems is opening, which needs research study. Territorial social systems are inextricably linked with the "mental factor". The article is devoted to the substantiation of a new scientific direction within the framework of social geography, focused on the study of socio-geographical factors and features of the formation, reproduction and transformation of mentality – ethological geography. The task of studying space in mentality, which is important in the socio-geographical plan, is not included in the tasks of ethological geography. Ethological geography expresses the geography of mentality, not mental geography. The problem of mentality in the structure of socio-geographical research suggests the substantiation of ethological geography in the subjectobject context of geographical science: geographical shell, geosystem, cultural landscapes, territorial social systems, etc. Subject-object analysis of ethological geography involves the choice of a basic, key approach that takes into account the specifics of the studied subject of research, based on the proven methodology of social geography. It is shown that such an approach is the concept of the territorial organization of culture and the main regularities of the territorial organization of society. The analysis carried out made it possible to formulate the object and subject of the study of ethological geography. The object of research, on which the research process is directed as a whole, is the spatial structures of ethos. The subject of the study as a reflection of the essential aspects of the object, its detailing in a specific research field is socio-geographical factors and features of the formation, reproduction and transformation of ethos in cultural-territorial communities. Geographical studies of the cultural space of Russia suggest a significant expansion of the subject matter due to theoretical and methodological developments in the geography of mentality, which will make it possible to determine the potential for long-term sustainability of multicultural communities and determine management technologies that can effectively and adequately respond to the rapidly changing political, economic and socio-cultural conjuncture.