Long-Term War-Induced Transformations of Settlement and Land-Use Systems: Regimes of Scientific Recognition and Research Patterns

Abstract

Military conflicts are commonly examined through immediate destruction, displacement, demographic loss, and post-war recovery. Much less attention is given to cumulative transformations of settlement and land-use systems that become visible only over several decades. This paper addresses that gap through the concept of regimes of scientific recognition, understood as historically situated configurations shaping which problems become legitimate research objects, which evidence is connected, and which long-term consequences remain fragmented or invisible.

Methodologically, the study combines conceptual analysis, long-duration historical reconstruction, and critical examination of scientific reflection. Crimea serves as a longitudinal case from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Crimean War, the civil-war period, the Second World War, Russia’s occupation beginning in 2014, and continuing military activity.

The central hypothesis is that war-induced transformations possess a morphology expressed through recurring spatial forms, shifts in population distribution, changes in land use, path dependence, and delayed effects. These patterns cannot be identified through short-term or conflict-by-conflict analysis. Crimea is therefore used as a critical case for developing a comparative morphology of long-term war-induced transformation and for examining why scientific literature often remains fragmented across separate disciplines, wars, and national historiographies.