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- Biegańska, Jadwiga, et al.
(author)
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Rural development vs. conceptually induced harm
- 2018
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In: 5th Nordic Conference for Rural Research: “Challenged ruralities: Nordic welfare states under pressure”, 14–16 May, 2018, Vingsted, Denmark. - : University of Copenhagen – Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. - 9788779037922
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Rural regions of Europe face multiple challenges. Among the weaker ones, below-average economic productivity and insufficient supply of physical and social infrastructure have opened up for new questions and efforts to protect people from harm. One notable oversight, however, is that the concept ‘rural’ can be vastly misleading, especially in the context of development. Harm is both a moral and a legal concept, which in the broadest sense denotes any form of setback to interest that is conceptually induced. What this means is that any abstract division or delimitation upheld or enforced by social factors will at the same time enable and constrain individual agency. Conceptualizations of ‘rural’ draw on imaginations on how the world is like, while the underlying frameworks of understanding depart from efforts to best manage those imaginations. Now in instances where subjectivity is high and elusiveness takes precedence over structured coherence, most imaginations catering to valid conceptualizations of ‘rurality’ will lose their socio-material reciprocity, whereupon conceptually induced harm is likely to manifest. Departing from these ideas, out paper challenges the engrained tradition of using ‘rural’ as a guiding label in societal organisation when seen through the prism of marginalization. Two similar deprivation-ridden estates – one ‘urban’ and one ‘rural’ – were investigated. Having taken account of the residents’ everyday lives in the socio-economic, material and discursive dimensions, our findings indicate that the notions of rurality and urbanity imbricate and leapfrog meaningful territories at the local level. Our findings suggest that in order to be efficient policy must take into account the role of the concept of rurality in creating marginalization, because a problem is not “rural” unless we make it “rural”. This means that such mode of cultural labelling may miss that many ubiquitous problems transcend spatial demarcations, whereupon conventional conceptualizations of rurality usually end up in failure and disappointment. This, we argue, is especially important in the context of the changed Nordic welfare model, where increased proclivity toward political correctness, openness to immigration and submission to loss of cultural specificity have also inconspicuously altered the notion of development hitherto widely understood as rural.
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| 2. |
- Chodkowska-Miszczuk, Justyna, et al.
(author)
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Biogas enterprises : A chance or a challenge for rural development?
- 2018
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In: Challenged Ruralities. - Copenhagen : University of Copenhagen – Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper addresses the question whether biogas plants (businesses based on renewable energy) often marketed as a great opportunity for rural development can at the same time pose a hidden challenge. Departing from the concept of embeddedness of enterprises in the local environment, our objective is realized with the help of two models of biogas plants. In the first model, biogas plants operate as an integral part of agricultural farms (biogas on-farm model); in the second model, they operate as independent companies established through investments by external entrepreneurs (biogas off-farm model). The two models have proven to affect the economies of particular biogas enterprises very differently. In the first model, the support of existing agricultural farms is of great importance as those usually are important for local stakeholders. In the second model, biogas plants that emerge as new external investments must build interactions with local entities from scratch. From an economic point of view, the lack of functioning mechanisms in this sense may influence further directions of development for many rural areas traditionally associated with agriculture.
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| 3. |
- Rytkönen, Paulina, 1961-, et al.
(author)
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Development in the Stockholm Archipelago : institutions, traditions and responses to local development initiatives
- 2018
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In: Challenged Ruralities. - Frederiksberg : Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. - 9788779037915 - 9788779037922
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Stockholm Archipelago is classified as one of the less developed rural areas in Sweden. Although the Archipelago is located close to Stockholm, local inhabitants and businesses live in the shadow of the capital city. Over the last decades, a number of policy initiatives and development projects have been launched to support a sustainable socio-economic development in the Stockholm Archipelago, not the least by trying to decrease the dependence on the summer season for the creation of local income. But results have not been as positive as expected. In addition, it seems that inhabitants in some islands have managed to create a more dynamic environment and have achieved some successes, while inhabitants in other islands are still struggling with the same problems as they were 20 years ago. These differences cannot easily be dismissed as a result of differences in physical infrastructure.By conducting a comparative qualitative and systematic study of the conditions for creating a sustainable socio-economic development in various islands in the Stockholm Archipelago this study will answer the following questions: What makes some communities in the archipelago vibrant and resilient and others less so? Which are the variations in pre-conditions for a vibrant and resilient development? What have previous policy initiatives and projects succeeded with? And when have they failed?The article is based in an on-going case study in which project and policy evaluation reports have been analysed. In addition, a large number of in-depth interviews with business owners in the Archipelago, with policy officers in various involved municipalities and project coordinators have been conducted.
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