Rural development in Latin America. A critical territorial approach
Author
Summary, in English
Latin America attends currently to the construction of a paradigm of rural development based on the potentiality of the territory to encourage processes of rural wellbeing. Some international studies relating rural development to territory from an institutional perspective have recently come out, greatly contributing to the construction of a territorially based rural development in the region. The paradigm is mainly centred in a monetary approach, stressing the need to increase incomes at local level through new agricultural or non-agricultural production and/or increases in productivity as well as through education for migrating to urban areas.
Development policies and projects that promote social and institutional transformation have to deal with the confrontation of those who oppose changing the status quo, particularly the local elites, and the resistance of those communities that consider that their identities may be lost as a result of that transformation. Therefore, a critical approach to territory (understood as an arena where different local and non local actors try to realize their projects) should be build up in order to comprehend the process generating rural poverty and development.
The purpose of this paper is to present the main ideas and concepts of an analytical framework under construction that may allow us to understand rural development from a critical territorial approach. The hypothesis is that social mobilization of local actors is a main issue when approaching and promoting development in poor rural regions of Latin American countries, especially the organization of peasants and farmers as they constitute
the majority of the inhabitants and are largely excluded from the socioeconomic and political system.
Development policies and projects that promote social and institutional transformation have to deal with the confrontation of those who oppose changing the status quo, particularly the local elites, and the resistance of those communities that consider that their identities may be lost as a result of that transformation. Therefore, a critical approach to territory (understood as an arena where different local and non local actors try to realize their projects) should be build up in order to comprehend the process generating rural poverty and development.
The purpose of this paper is to present the main ideas and concepts of an analytical framework under construction that may allow us to understand rural development from a critical territorial approach. The hypothesis is that social mobilization of local actors is a main issue when approaching and promoting development in poor rural regions of Latin American countries, especially the organization of peasants and farmers as they constitute
the majority of the inhabitants and are largely excluded from the socioeconomic and political system.
Department/s
Publishing year
2007
Language
English
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Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Human Geography
Keywords
- rural development
- Latin America
- territorial rural development
- territory
- power
- alternative development
Conference name
NGM (Nordic geographers Meeting), 2007
Conference date
2007-06-15 - 2007-06-17
Conference place
Bergen, Norway
Status
Unpublished