Rural areas are often viewed as isolated and stagnating areas and urban areas as their opposites. Against such a backdrop, this book seeks to unveil a set of dynamics that view rural areas as ‘translocal’ in the sense that they are ‘changing’ and ‘interconnected’. Social transformations take place in rural areas as the result of intense exchanges between different people, settings and geographies. Accordingly, rural-urban but also rural-rural interrelations on international and national scales are strongly contributing to rural change. Translocal ruralism is exemplified through the analysis of local and global migratory flows, the activities of rural firms in national and global arenas, the spread of different forms of transportation and dislocation, and the growing information society, which enables rural spaces to be connected to the world and improves new ways of interconnection and sociability practices. The book is structured into two parts, which intertwine the dynamics of rural spaces. The first part, ‘Linking nodes: people and networks connecting places’, is concerned with mobilities such as migration and commuting, and the establishment of national and global networks. The second part, ‘International mobilities: a tension between scales’, analyses the dynamics of international migration and mobilities in rural areas.

This book describes the changing landscape of European forest ownership and explores the impact a new, often urban, generation of forest owners may have on the future of one of our most basic resources – forests. Forests have not played a major role in rural studies thus far, however they constitute an important part of many rural areas. Drawing on Swedish cases and comparison cases from various other areas of Europe, the authors present these ‘new forest owners’ as a pivotal factor in the changing relationships between urban and rural life. The chapters explore how forest production, the relationship to the environment, urban-rural relations and local communities have already changed as well as discussing what might be expected for the future. A result of work in the Swedish research programme PLURAL and related projects, such as the EU Cost Action FACESMAP, this volume will be of interest to scholars of forestry and rural studies, as well as to researchers in environmental, population and globalization studies more broadly.

This book sheds light on the effects of the financial and economic crisis in a diverse set of countries of Southern and Mediterranean Europe. Drawing on case studies from Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey, this book presents a broad and integrative perspective on the impact of the crisis in different rural territories, discussing the similarities and dissimilarities of those impacts together with the resilience strategies adopted in each context. The impacts of the crisis in rural restructuring processes are also taken in consideration in this volume. Based on diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, the book discusses the challenges presented by the new socioeconomic contexts emerging from the crisis, as well as the resilience strategies adopted in rural territories by old and new actors. The book compiles nine empirical chapters dealing with the different cases and a final chapter devoted to the discussion of the shared and dissimilar processes of rural change. This book is a useful and valuable resource for scholars and post-graduate students from different disciplines, such as rural sociology, geography, anthropology, regional planning and agricultural studies.

In many European regions, rural areas are facing major challenges in economic and social terms, consequence of transformations in the role and meaning of agriculture. The loss of the productive character strongly contributed to the emergence of new roles and functions, particularly related to leisure and tourism. The book aims to discuss questions directly related to the connections between rural tourism and local socioeconomic contexts, presenting diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives and diff erent case studies from various European regions. The book addresses the relationships among rural tourism and the complex interactions, confl icts and innovative processes developing in rural territories as consequence of the implementation of tourism activities. The book responds to some relevant and not yet comprehensively researched aspects within this topic, especially in what extent tourism, in its various forms and processes, might give an important contribution to rural development.

There has been a great deal of restructuring of rural places and communities under globalisation, highlighting the interaction of local and global actors to produce new hybrid socio-economic relations. Recent research highlights the heterogeneity of globalisation in which rural places are different to each other, but also different to how they were in the past. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of academics, and comparative case studies from Europe (West and East) and Asia, this book explores and discusses opportunities and challenges associated with globalising rural places, and identifies possibilities for policy and practical intervention by rural development actors. Special attention is paid to multi-scalar processes through which rural places are reshaped through globalisation. Taking a geographical approach, the book produces new critical work on the interdependence between globalisation and rural spaces. It is organised into five sections: Part I focuses on ’Global-Rural Linkages’ showing the multifaceted interrelation between actors at different geographical scale and demonstrating that globalisation is not only external to rural spaces. Part II on ’Rural Entrepreneurship and Labour Markets’ explores the potential of business start-ups in rural spaces which are not only necessity driven. Part III ’Rural Innovation and Learning’ shows that rural places are also places for innovation and learning. Part IV on ’Rural Policies and Governance’ argues that regional policies for rural places should promote side activities to maintain social capital and that regional policy should take a more integrative perspective between urban and rural spaces in order to explore complementary development paths. The concluding chapter ’New Approaches to Rural Spaces’ discusses new approaches to globalising rural places in relation to the preceding chapters published in this book.

This book looks at labor in agriculture and food in a global era by studying salient characteristics of the conditions and use of labor in global agri-food. Written by experienced and also emerging scholars, the chapters present a wealth of empirical data and robust theorizations that allow readers to grasp the complexity of this topic.

This book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalizing world that fundamentally impacts on the structure of agricultural life in rural areas and urban-rural relations. It analyses the development of rural gender relations in specific places around the world and looks into the effects of the increasing connectivity and mobility of people across places. The themes covered are: gender and mobility, gender and agriculture, Gender and rural politics, rurality and Gender identity and women and international development. Each theme has an overview of the state of the art in that specific thematic area and integrates the case-studies that follow.

This book brings small places to the main stage in an exploration of the nature of immigration in rural areas and small towns in Europe. Extending recent efforts to study migration at a sub-national scale, the authors focus their analysis on non-metropolitan areas to consider how globalisation and modernisation processes are experienced at a local level. Morén-Alegret and Wladyka weave themes of livelihood, social participation, justice and equity into human and planetary sustainability debates, drawing on quantitative population data as well as qualitative information on challenges for rural and small town sustainability in four different European countries (Portugal, France, Spain and England). Highlighting the interlinked relationship between rural sustainability, migration and ethnic diversity, this research is a valuable resource for policy-makers and academics alike, with far-reaching implications across geography, sociology, political science, anthropology and environmental sciences.

This book examines the multiple ways in which rural regions in Europe are being restructured through globalization and the regional development responses that they have adopted. It provides an understanding of the key challenges and opportunities for rural regions arising from the major economic, social, political and cultural changes associated with globalization, including trade liberalization and economic deregulation, increased international migration, and the rise of global consciousness about environmental issues. Drawing on examples and findings from a major European research project, DERREG, the book presents detailed case studies of ten regions in different parts of Europe, exploring the factors that lead to different experiences of globalization in each of the regions, and highlighting examples of good practice in regional development responses. The book concludes by proposing a typology of regional responses to globalization and considering the policy implications of the research findings. As such, ’Globalization and Europe’s Rural Regions’ is important reading for geographers, sociologists, planners and economists interested in understanding the impact of globalization in rural regions, and for rural development professionals seeking to mobilize effective responses.

Rural Development in the Digital Age explores current theoretical and policy developments in EU rural policy during the 4.0 period. The book offers an analysis of the contradictory and complex drivers and multiple impacts of Period 4.0 policy within the specific territorial context of its implementation. It is commonly agreed within academic and policy circles that the contexts, trends, drivers and impacts which are currently morphing have the potential to determine the nature and boundaries of rural areas in the longer-term. The authors examine inconsistencies in the design and implementation of EU rural development policy driven largely by intensifying neo-productivist pressures. The importance and novelty of the book lie in defining and critically examining the territorial impacts of neo-productivism as an ideology, a practice and a set of policy imperatives during the EU’s 2014-2020 programming period. The authors argue that such a paradigm shift in EU rural policy may reduce its effectiveness and ability to meet its goals of balanced territorial development and cohesion. This book will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and policymakers in rural policy, regional studies, economic geography and EU policy.