Article,
Putting postmodernity into practice: endogenous development and the role of traditional cultures in the rural development of marginal regions
Ecological Economics, 34 (3): 301-313 (2000/9)
Abstract
Post-modernity has led to a re-evaluation of tradition. This paper
considers one aspect of this re-evaluation -- the role of traditional
cultures and their implications for a rural development process which
is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable in the
marginal regions of Europe. The links between traditional cultures,
territoriality and sustainability suggest that a culturally homogeneous
world is an unattractive prospect in sustainable development terms.
Actor-network theory is explored as an approach which can be used
to inform policy, in particular by conceptualising how a re-valorisation
of cultural resources can provide local actors with strategic capacity
for endogenous development and for the harnessing of extra-local
forces in a market economy. Against this background, current European
Union agricultural policy directions are considered, and an alternative
approach is proposed under which traditional cultures are explicitly
treated as resources in the creation of rural development networks.
Such networks treat territorial locality as an asset, facilitate
the animation of local and regional development, and connect localities
and local actors with wider national and international markets and
development frameworks. The rural development path for marginal regions
that emerges integrates tradition with the imperatives of the postmodern
world in which economic rationality is combined with an appropriate
degree of local developmental control.
