1st Edition
Territorial Cohesion in Rural Europe The Relational Turn in Rural Development
This book reflects on how the economies, social characteristics, ways of life and global relationships of rural areas of Europe have changed in recent years. This reveals a need to refresh the concepts we use to understand, measure and describe rural communities and their development potential. This book argues that Europe has 'outgrown' many of the stereotypes usually associated with it, with substantial implications for European Rural Policy.
Rural structural change and its evolving geography are portrayed through regional typologies and the concept of the New Rural Economy. Demographic change, migration, business networks and agricultural restructuring are each explored in greater detail. Implications for equality and social exclusion, and recent developments in the field of governance are also considered. Despite being a subject of active debate, interventions in the fields of rural and regional development have failed to adapt to changing realities and have become increasingly polarized.
This book argues that rural/regional policy needs to evolve in order to address the current complex reality, partially reformulating territorial or place-based approaches, and the New Rural Paradigm, following a set of principles termed ‘Rural Cohesion Policy’.
Section I Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The New Rural Economy and macro-scale patterns Chapter 3. The evolution of European rural policy Chapter 4. Parallel Worlds? Comparing the perspectives and rationales of EU Rural Development and Cohesion Policy Chapter 5. Territorial Cohesion: US and Canadian Perspectives on the Concept Section II Chapter 6. Demographic trends in Rural Europe Chapter 7. Reconciling Labour Mobility and Cohesion Policies –The Rural Experience Chapter 8. Business networks and translocal linkages and the way to the NRE Chapter 9. Agricultural Restructuring in the EU: An Irish Case Study Section III Chapter 10. Changing social characteristics, patterns of inequality and exclusion Chapter 11. Beyond the New Rural Paradigm: Project state and collective reflexive agency Epilogue Rural Cohesion Policy as the appropriate response to current rural trends.
Biography
Andrew K. Copus is an Economic Geographer with the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Group at The James Hutton Institute, Scotland, UK.
Philomena de Lima is a Sociologist and the Director of the Centre for Rural and Remote Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness College, Scotland, UK.
