Rural development in Europe is a long‐standing issue that has been supported through EU policies in various ways. The effects of rural development have been uneven, and differences between well‐to‐do ...and marginal rural areas have been increasing both across and within countries. This process is reinforced by the current financial crisis. Recently, social innovation has been introduced as the new panacea for realising development and growth while, at the same time, warranting social inclusion and counteracting social inequality. A central question of this article is whether social innovation may help to effectively fight rural marginalisation, why that could be the case and what conditions then must be met. Three examples of rural social innovation are used to distil specific features of social innovation and compare them with other concepts and approaches to rural development. Rural social innovation is distinctive in its dependence on civic self‐reliance and self‐organisation due to austerity measures and state withdrawal, and its cross‐sectoral and translocal collaborations. This article concludes that it is time to go beyond earlier ideas of exogenous versus (neo‐)endogenous development and introduces the idea of nexogenous development with socio‐political reconnection as an engine of revitalisation.
This paper considers gender mainstreaming of the EU Rural Development Programme. The EU promotes the gender mainstreaming of rural development policies because retaining women in rural areas is seen ...as crucial to the long-term viability of rural areas. A review of literature and scan of policy documents demonstrates that few rural development plans address gender issues, and generally only by including some separate projects for women. Little is done to address the systemic features of gender inequality and to realise inclusive developments that address the needs of all social groups. The de-politicisation of rural gender issues results in policy makers ticking the obligatory gender box without envisioning any real change in the agenda or process of rural development policy making. I argue that a more fruitful way to go forward is to re-politicise gender in rural development and to tease out at the local level how changing gender relations and rural development coincide.
Transnational relations can play an important role in young people's identity negotiations and transitions to adulthood. In this article, we explore how young British-born Muslims construct and ...contest their religious identities and experience their changing religious identities from their lateteens until their early-twenties. We analyse how places beyond the UK shape their religious beliefs and identities in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, and present a methodological tool to understand young people's complex and changing (religious) identities and spatialities. We draw on in-depth interviews - including map-making methods - with a small number of young Muslims living in Newcastle upon Tyne whose parents migrated from Pakistan or Bangladesh. This article contributes to youth geographies, by illustrating that when the participants begin to negotiate 'being Muslim' more independently, the spatial orientation of their religious identities starts to change as well. We show that the changing meaning and importance of the places beyond the UK should be understood in relation to other spatial notions when explaining religious identity negotiations of young people. Moreover, the paper provides a methodological contribution in demonstrating how map-making can help to examine young people's identities and changing relationships to places in a transnational context.
Social innovation is considered a promising strategy for coping with societal challenges in rural areas. It is even viewed as essential to revitalisation. The literature suggests that social ...innovation is driven by the will to pursue a better quality of life, which includes the tangible and practical needs of residents (digital connectivity, healthcare facilities, environmental improvement, etc.), and results in tangible and intangible changes in society. In this paper, we aim to clarify the emergence of social innovation in rural revitalisation from community-driven practices and identify the relevant actors (actants). In doing so, we use the lens of actor-network theory (ANT) to analyse two rural communities from Taiwan. Both were confronted with environmental issues but they addressed in different ways and with different outcomes. Identifying the emergence of social innovation processes and their key actants, we conclude that rural social innovation can be an unintended outcome of continuous engagement in which practical interests result in both tangible and intangible changes. Therefore, it is difficult to predict at the outset whether community-driven rural revitalisation will facilitate social innovation. Nevertheless, staying connected with a group of engaged residents who are driven by a shared vision seems to be essential for fuelling social innovation, regardless of whether the actors are conscious of social innovation.
•Civic engagement is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient for SI.•The outcomes of social innovation can be unintentional.•Engaged residents driven by a shared vision seems to be essential for SI.•Spaces for learning, exchange and discussion are crucial for continuous engagement.
In this article, we use Kooiman’s theory of governance in combination with key‐conditions of community self‐steering identified in recent studies to examine how the self‐steering capacity developed ...of a community initiative aiming at improving the liveability of a small Dutch village. Using non‐participatory observations and qualitative analysis, we obtained in‐depth insights into how this initiative, ‘Project Ulrum 2034’ managed to build local autonomy from 2010 to 2018. We found that government support was crucial for many of its successes. Also, tensions came to light between 1. local autonomy, and its dependence on professional support, and; 2. broader community engagement, and accountability related to the public funding obtained leading to the formalisation of its organisation and the centralisation of tasks. We discovered that self‐steering capacities fluctuate in time, are dynamic and develop in a non‐linear way. The voluntary engagement was above all temporary, except for some activities when of direct interest to those involved. The continuity of community self‐governance was fragile, due to its dependency on external funding and voluntary engagement.
This book explores the gender effects of the current transformation of agriculture and rural life. Five themes are addressed: developments in rural gender theory and research methodology; changes in ...farm households; migration patterns of men and women in rural areas; the impact of national and international policies; and the construction of identities and definitions of femininity and masculinity as a result of rural change. Contributors include scholars from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Green Care practices have received increasing scholarly attention in the last decade. Yet most studies are concerned with the aspect of human well-being, with less attention given to other caring ...dimensions and their relation to sustainability. This paper aims to contribute to an integrative understanding of Green Care by proposing an analytical framework inspired by the ethics of care literature and, in particular, Tronto’s five stages of caring (about, for, with, giving, and receiving). The goal is to use a relational lens to appreciate the diverse caring practices and their potential in three Finnish cases studies—a care farm, a biodynamic farm, and a nature-tourism company. We apply the framework on data gathered during three years through an in-depth participatory action-oriented research. Findings show that: (a) Green Care practitioners share sustainability concerns that go beyond human well-being and that translate into practices with benefits for the target users, wider community, and ecosystems; (b) caring is a relational achievement attained through iterative processes of learning. Two concluding insights can be inferred: a care lens sheds light on practitioners’ moral agency and its sustainability potential; in-depth creative methods are needed for a thorough and grounded investigation of human and non-human caring relations in Green Care practices.
A new geography of regional decline is signalled as a prominent source of discontent. This study considers regional divides in the Netherlands, and examines what trajectories can be detected in ...regional development and how these relate to recent regional discontent. Based on quantitative analyses of longitudinal data at the NUTS-3 level, we found a persistence of social and economic inequalities over the last decade(s). Our main result is that evidence for economic decline at the regional scale is limited, and unlikely to account for regional discontent in the Netherlands. Pathways of regional divergence and decline were mostly found in demographic change. Anti-establishment attitudes across Dutch regions were strongly associated with lower income, lower population change and ageing.
Local governments are increasingly adopting food policies, but the extent to which these policies advance their stated aims often remains unknown. Indicator frameworks have been developed to ...facilitate evaluation, but in practice, food policy evaluation remains limited, as cities face increasing challenges. Through an explorative case study, we examine implementation opportunities and challenges for the indicator framework with a relatively greater potential reach among governments: the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact framework. Data, collected from expert interviews, were inductively analyzed for evaluation opportunities and challenges. Our analysis confirms that, at present, the value of this framework lies less in the evaluation outcomes themselves, and more in opportunities generated from the process, such as concretizing policy priorities and goals and generating political will. Encountered challenges include lack of data and resources, difficulty of adaptation to the local context, and poor data accessibility. Evaluation challenges between thematic areas differ: issues related to food production, supply, and distribution prove relatively hard, while health and governance issues are easier to assess. We emphasize the value of approaching evaluation less as a mechanism of accountability and control, and more with a view to acknowledging its processual capacity to improve food policy and learn.
European agriculture and rural areas are facing multiple socio-economic changes, including a transition from an agriculture-based to a service-based economy. This restructuring forces agricultural ...and rural actor-networks to reformulate their (self-)definitions. One reformulation prevailing both in policy and scientific circles focuses on the notion of multifunctional agriculture (MFA). This paper critically examines the dominant role that this notion has played in legitimising and shaping the pathways of rural development now present in Europe. More specifically, we examine MFA's role in promoting and organising Green Care as an innovative agricultural activity in the Netherlands and in Flanders (Belgium). We will demonstrate that the MFA frame does not sufficiently grasp the complex reality of Green Care developments. More importantly, the dominance of the MFA frame and related practices and institutional structures enable as well as constrain Green Care's continuity and further development.
•Multifunctional agriculture, public health and social inclusion are frames in GCA.•Multifunctional agriculture frame is more prevailing in Flanders than in the Netherlands.•Green Care develops differently in both regions.•The limited cross-sectorial interaction is restricting future pathways.
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