Leadership and Local Power in European Rural Development by Imre Kovách Keith Halfacree

Author:Imre Kovách, Keith Halfacree [Imre Kovách, Keith Halfacree]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780754615811
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2002-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

Discourses of Urbanity and Rurality and the Territorial Development Process in France

As noted at the start of this chapter, ‘the rural’ remains a concept intensely mobilised in every sphere of French society: by ordinary people; social movements and associations; local, regional and central policies; and of course, by the social sciences. For ordinary people, in almost all social classes, la campagne (countryside) appeals as a positive representation (Hervieu and Viard 1996), linked with physical properties (pure air, natural environment, smells, landscapes) but also with moral qualities (liberty, conviviality, a specific ‘village’ sociability, local management, democracy). Social movements, syndicates and associations are also mobilised by the ‘rural cause’. This is most obvious in farmers’ movements. Conservatives, such as the FNSEA or the CNJA (see note 10), fight against ‘desertification’ and have recently claimed an interest in protecting the environment and natural resources (cf. the Farre network for a ‘rational’ agriculture). Radicals, such as the Confederation Paysanne (Peasant Confederation), struggle against globalisation’s consequences for food and rural employment and for the challenge of ‘sustainable’ or ‘peasant’ agriculture (Confederation Paysanne, 1994). Rural or ‘local’ identity is more and more important inside the developing associations movement. This phenomenon has been recognised among both established groups, such as the MRJC (Rural Movement of Christian Youth) (Epagneul and Mathieu, 2000), and newer groups, such as local associations concerned with re-integrating the unemployed and socially excluded. It is also apparent in big networks of rural associations, such as UNADEL (Union of National and Local Development Associations) or CELAVAL (Centre for the Liaison of Associations Valorising the Rural Milieu). Though many ministries (the Treasury, for example) show hostility to specific rural and local policies, public policies are still influenced by the issues of rural development, landscape protection, natural and environmental problems, local and ‘country’ development and, as said before, agriculture. Discussions in parliament and resulting legislation are there to prove it. Rural discourses and representations shape, at many levels, French social and spatial change.

Beyond this general overview, it is possible to pick up some features more specifically French.11 In France, ‘the rural’ has always been understood in conjunction with ‘the urban’ and their inter-relationship causes persistent controversy. Is there a ‘wasteland France’ (Fottorino, 1989), a ‘France for departures’ (Alphandéry, Bitoun and Dupont, 1989) and a ‘rural crisis’ (Béteille, 1994), or a ‘rural renaissance’ and a ‘chosen countryside’ (Kayser, 1990, 1996)? Is there an urban crisis linked with a rejected style of life (Mathieu, 1996), or is this crisis more of a consequent negative effect which comes from paying too much attention to rural problems and rural areas (Levy, 1994)? Is it the end of the rural/urban opposition or the emergence of new relationships based on differentiation and complementarity?

Rural and urban social representations, as well as their inter-relation, have moved in time and space (Mathieu, 1990, 1998; Mathieu and Robert, 1998). Analysing these variations from the 1950s to the 1990s, periods can be distinguished based on the dominant ideology of each period. There are very subtle links between both

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