The Limits to Capital

Both in practice and policy a new model of rural development is emerging. This paper reflects the discussions in the impact research programme and suggests that at the level of associated theory also a fundamental shift is taking place. The modernization paradigm that once dominated policy, practice and theory is being replaced by a new rural development paradigm. Rural development is analyzed as a multi-level, multi-actor and multi-facetted process rooted in historical traditions that represents at all levels a fundamental rupture with the modernization project. The range of new quality products, services and forms of cost reduction that together comprise rural development are understood as a response by farm families to both the eroding economic base of their enterprises and to the new needs and expectations European society has of the rural areas. Rural development therefore is largely an autonomous, self-driven process and in its further unfolding agriculture will continue to play a key role, although it is a role that may well change. This article provides an introduction to the nine papers of this ‘special issue’ and the many reconfiguration processes embodied in rural development that they address.in rural development

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9523.00156

Rural Development: From Practices and Policies towards Theory

In this paper we analyze a turn to “quality” in both food production and consumption. We argue that quality in the food sector, as it is being asserted at the present time, is closely linked to nature and the local embeddedness of supply chains. We thus outline the broad contours of this shift and discuss the most appropriate theoretical approaches. We consider political economy, actor-network theory, and conventions theory and argue that, whereas political economy has proved useful in the analysis of globalization, it may prove less so in the examination of quality. We concentrate, therefore, upon actor-network theory and conventions theory and show that the former allows nature to be brought to the center of analytical attention but provides few tools for the analysis of quality, especially in the context of the food sector. Conventions theory, on the other hand, links together a range of aspects found in food supply chains and allows us to consider the establishment of quality as a system of ne...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/144549.pdf

Quality, Nature, and Embeddedness: Some Theoretical Considerations in the Context of the Food Sector

Developments in the agricultural industry are requiring dramatic changes in the role of the farmer away from intensive production oriented approaches towards more sustainable forms of agriculture. While this may appear to require a relatively simply change in emphasis, production based roles not only contain economic value, but contain social value in that they are used to communicate status as a 'good farmer'. Thus, when farmers are asked to change approaches to agriculture, they are not only incurring economic costs but also social costs and this is rarely, if at all, acknowledged. This study uses a symbolic interactionist framework to investigate the symbolic meaning of intensive agricultural production: how crops/livestock are perceived by farmers, how they convey status, and how they are linked with the status of the farm family within the farming community. It concludes that understanding the true meaning of agricultural activities on the farm and considering these factors in the development of policy may reduce the potential loss of established farm families from the land and the subsequent loss of decades or even centuries of experience, knowledge and local history.

Seeing Through the ‘Good Farmer's’ Eyes: Towards Developing an Understanding of the Social Symbolic Value of ‘Productivist’ Behaviour

There is weak conceptualization of the differentiation between migration and tourism, which has contributed to relative neglect of the relationships between these. This paper examines some of the major influences on these relationships, dividing them into two general but inter-linked categories: broad economic and social trajectories, and tourism factors. A number of specific forms of tourism-related migration are then examined in the context of these social and economic trajectories. The paper explores labour migration, return migration, entrepreneurial migration, retirement migration, and the special feature of second homes. It concludes by emphasizing the need to place studies of the links between tourism and migration more firmly into wider social science debates, and by setting out some fruitful lines of future research.

Tourism and migration : new relationships between production and consumption

Constructing the Countryside

Regulating the new rural spaces: the uneven development of land

The subject is covered in chapters, entitled: introduction; (Part I) the environmental movement (environmental groups and the attentive public; the episodic development of the environmental movement; the underlying values of environmentalism; the roots of environmental concern; the social limits to growth; elite manipulation of values); the organisation of environmental groups; environmental groups in national politics; environmental groups in local politics; (Part II) the Henley Society; Friends of the Earth; the National Trust; the Royal Society for Nature Conservation; the European Environmental Bureau.

Environmental groups in politics

En este articulo se analiza el cambio de orientacion en los estudios sobre desarrollo economico rural en Europa, en los que se concede prioridad a los modelos endogenos (de abajo arriba) respecto a los exogenos (impulsados por factores externos). Se formula un concepto empirico y relacional del desarrollo endogeno desde la perspectiva del control local y, teniendo esto en cuenta, se examina el desarrollo del concepto de distritos industriales rurales. En la seccion final se presenta la metodologia del analisis de redes como medio para analizar el concepto empirico de desarrollo rural endogeno y para conceptualizar la endogeneidad relativa de procesos de desarrollo especificos desde un punto de vista teorico coherente.

Networks in rural development: beyond exogenous and endogenous models

Who is rural? or, how to be rural, Marc Morment restructuring agriculture in advance societies - transformation, crisis and responses, Patrick Commins paradigmatic shift in agriculture - global effects and the Swedish response, Martin Peterson agricultural restructuring and rural social change in Australia, Geoffrey Lawrence rural labour market changes in the United States, Gene F.Summers et al class and change in rural Britain, Paul Cloke and Nigel Thift household, consumption and livelihood - ideologies and issues for rural research, Nenneke Redclift and Sarah Whatmore.

Philip Lowe

Papers

Constructing the Countryside

Regulating the new rural spaces: the uneven development of land

Environmental groups in politics

Networks in rural development: beyond exogenous and endogenous models

Rural restructuring: global processes and their responses.