Rural Economic Development

Within ‘developed’ countries, current economic development strategies for rural areas are concerned with reshaping rural economies in the context of agricultural restructuring and associated economic and social change. There has been a recognizable shift from the imposition of top-down development strategies to the promotion of local and community involvement. As a result, partnership, participation, and empowerment are now buzzwords within the rural development discourse. The current development philosophy emphasizes the importance of participation and is underpinned by an espousal of the centrality of community involvement, empowerment, and capacity-building. While this approach may have brought some positive changes, its focus on ‘community’ brings to the fore questions concerning the power relations associated with participation and partnership, the lauding of local involvement and the co-option of local activism. While some strands of research focus on the mechanics of policy implementation, others explore the politics of rural development.