“LANDSCAPE OF THE YEAR”. SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY AND THE ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL ADAPTATION IN THE DANUBE DELTA
“LANDSCAPE OF THE YEAR”. SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY AND THE ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL ADAPTATION IN THE DANUBE DELTA

Summary/Abstract: This paper intends to develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of nature- culture relations and their policy implications, with a special emphasis on spatial planning policies. It draws heavily on Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, borrowing its key concepts from him: system, environment, dedifferentiation, decoupling, de-paradoxification, autopoiesis. Systems theory is used to deepen the understanding of actual and desirable policy- making in Romania’s Danube Delta area, a region marked by high attributed natural values, a remarkable cultural complexity, high pressures on culture and nature, an instable emerging democracy. It is argued that western notions of state, planning, nature, single land use, democracy, economy potentially cause more trouble in this area than in the west itself. And that a self- organizing democratic system, informed by natural and social sciences, is a prerequisite for whatever ecologically inspired policy. In such a system, a post- modern planning administration, combining many images of nature and culture, and accepting multiple land use, should find its place.

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