New geographies of post-socialist Europe

This paper aims to raise the question of a new conceptualization for the territory of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It argues that the old conceptualization of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is no longer valid and asks, 'What has replaced it?' It asserts that several difficulties face Geography as a discipline and those geographers who take on the challenge of constructing new geographies of the region as a foreign area study. A review of the Western geographical literature published since 1990 leads to the identification of four paradigms that underpin recent geographical research on the region: redefining personal, group and territorial identity and meaning; transition and transformation; the New Europe; the New World Order. The paper criticizes these approaches for failing to effectively develop a new regional territorial conceptualization and calls for a closer association of locational, societal and cultural theories of place and space to construct new geographies of the east of Europe after socialism.