فصلنامه مطالعات فرهنگی اجتماعی خراسان
سال پنجم شماره 4 (پیاپی 20، تابستان 1390)

Formation of local assumptions about weather forecast, as part of local knowledge, is the result of man and environment interaction in dry areas including the South Khorasan. The applied significance of this becomes evident when weather changes and assumptions regarding it, which is the result of frequency and recurrence of air mass ingress and egress year after year, can change man's exploitation of the environment to his advantage and disadvantage. On this basis, synoptic analyses in two cold and warm periods were examined and it was found that, according to local knowledge, these analyses can be a forecasting reference of weather conditions in a traditional way.

The south of Khorasan has been a geopolitical area since a long time ago. The continual presence of the British in the area and the ingress of German spies around world war II and even the presence of Alam family along history approves this. According to some viewers, the significance of Alam family and their assuming power for a long time shows the geopolitical position of the area, which caused this family to play an important role in the political and non-political balance. What happens around this geographical position today has not only not decreased its geopolitical importance but has also given the area more and deeper geopolitical position that affects national security of the country. The military presence of the United States in Afganistan, the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism in Afganistan and Pakistan, drugs trade, etc. in the area can directly affect national security of the country as well. What is important, here, is the role of South Khorasan which has the chance of controlling these threats.

After some decades of the enforcement of development programmes in the developing countries, overpopulation in the cities was the first sign of the problems concerning city programming. Following the ever-increasing of the ingress into cities especially from the rural areas, migration and living on the outskirts became the two undifferentiated phenomena of city problems. The present study tries to define the migration from the rural areas and living on the outskirts and meanwhile analyse the community social-economical characteristics of the families in the community centers of the outskirts of Birjand (i.e. Javadieh, Laborers, and Moosabne Jafar districts). The method of the study is descriptive-analytical and the way of data collection is predicative-mensurative. The statistical population was 6902 families living in the three districts and the sample size through multistage sampling was 327 families. In the analysis of the findings of the study descriptive statistics and inference statistics especially correlation coefficient and X2 were used. The results indicate that the primary origin of most of the immigrations to the outskirts (i.e. 64.1%) is the rural areas. The small-scale literacy and high level of unemployment and imbalance of income distribution, too, are the most important social-economical peculiarities of the sample size in the research.

Experience of several decades of programming and trying to develop has shown that in countries like ours, success of development programmes cannot be possible only by importing techniques and technologies from developed countries because lack of coordination of this borrowing with the culture of the host society is followed by negative effects. On the other hand, development is a multidimensional phenomenon which requires some change in all aspects referring to man and even natural environment. Thus, cultural development is supposed to be a primary and obligatory requirement in regional development. Since South Khorasan has got an observable cultural and historical background and the need for local and regional programming and development of it cannot be helped, the present paper tries to study and analyse the capabilities and challenges cultural development is facing to in the form of strengths, weaknesses, chances, and threats by means of strategic management model –SWOT- to enhance the role of culture in the development of the province. The results showed that in South Khorasan the positive factors in the development both internally and externally, have a weight advantage over negative factors. In other words, the province has enormous potential for cultural development but this has not been realized so far. Thus, utilizing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in order to adjust and fix the outcome is a possible thing. Accordingly, in order to realize cultural development strategies were introduced in South Khorasan in which the Comprehensive Plan to determine future policies and programs is the first priority.

The aim of this study is to analyse the literary manifestations of the dialects of some of the villages in the south -east of Khoosf city and Naharjan Rural district, which is one of the dependencies of Mood city in the South Khorasan. A few of the ironies, proverbs, local terms,myths,and various traditions of this subculture were gathered; and aspects such as " place" and "time", weather, preislamic culture,etc. were taken into account. Moreover, a few of the common literary terms and expressions of the vernacular of the language of great composers and writers, which were stated, can approve the artistic value and customary dialects in the South Khorasan villages and the subject matter of this paper.

The merchant class, because of their effect on social and economical life of the society and their role in the process of social development, are worth studying and consideration. Merchants, as a social class and because of their interaction and relationship with other social classes including religious preachers and government officials, have had social influence and a variety of functions. Having a capital, too, has been a significant measure for the credit of this class. This factor has been important in presenting merchants as an influential class. In the present paper, first an outlook of the trade situation of 13th and 14th hejri centuries of Birjand has been drawn to study the role and function of merchants. In this outlook merchandise pieces, roads, cities, trade exchanging countries, and other effective factors on the trade of the region have been discussed. Following this, while mentioning the most important characteristics of the merchant class, their economical and non-economical functions have been taken into account.

"Niaresh" is among the most important and fundamental principles of Iranian architecture which covers statics, architecture, and acquaintance with materials. The buildings remnants from the first centuries until the end of Islamic era of Iran indicate that Iranian architects paid special attention to the vault and arch roofing among different special elements. They assumed the beauty of a building was indebted to accurate favouring of arch structures, "Niaresh". The significance of this matter becomes two-fold when we find out that the main special structure of religious and non-religious buildings of Khorasani, Razi, Azari, and Isfahani architectural methods including rooms of roofed nocturnal mosques, porches, chambers, verandas, the collection of entrance, vestibules, and particularly vaults have been built by making use of arch structures and the fact that without such structures such buildings basically dont have an architectural concept. Because of The importance of the subject, the present paper has tried to introduce the most important current arch structures in building of Khorasan grave tombs during Islamic era by making use of reliable and ancient sources of architecture including "the treatise Arch and Azaj" by Ghiyasaldin Jamshid-e-Kashani. The work is the oldest known source dealing with arch structures referred to by this paper; besides, the most important arch structures which were current in the grave vault structures of Khorasan during Islamic era were introduced during fieldwork.