Researcher and Employee: Reflections on Reflective Practice in Rural Development Research

This article describes an ethnographic study that was used to critically assess the links between rural development policy and practice. It does so from the novel perspective of the researcher as an employee in the organisation where the ethnography study was conducted. The article argues that this distinctive position gives rise to specific methodological issues. Particular attention is paid in the analysis to marginalised issues in reflexive practice literature, namely, the structural context. In so doing this research places at centre stage the importance of reflexivity in the field of rural sociology, an area in which to date it has had limited acceptance.

Planning Through Dialogue for Rural Development: The European Citizens’ Panel Initiative

This paper presents a narrative of the operation of the European Citizens’ Panel that reported in 2007 on the future roles of rural areas. This dialogue was located within a wider and recent engagement by the EU with its citizens following rejection of the EU Constitutional Treaty. The paper draws attention to the contemporary rural development challenges in Europe that were debated by eight regional panels as a prelude to a wider European deliberation. The working method of the European Citizens’ Panel is outlined and critical commentary is provided on the interaction between planning through dialogue, EU citizenship renewal, and the shaping of bottom-up development trajectories.

Housing Rural Communities: Connecting Rural Dwellings to Rural Development in Ireland

This paper explores the interaction between rural development policy and spatial planning policies for rural housing within the context of the island of Ireland. It draws on research commissioned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive for a high level review of its rural housing policy. The paper highlights issues of wider relevance comprising a strained relationship between rural communities and rural planning, and argues for the adoption of cultural, environmental and community values within the rural planning policy arena.

Are rural development programmes socially inclusive? Social inclusion, civic engagement, participation, and social capital: Exploring the differences

Considerable importance is attached to social exclusion/inclusion in recent EU rural development programmes. At the national/regional operation of these programmes groups of people who are not participating are often identified as ‘socially excluded groups’. This article contends that rural development programmes are misinterpreting the social processes of participation and consequently labelling some groups as socially excluded when they are not. This is partly because of the interchangeable and confused use of the concepts social inclusion, social capital and civic engagement, and partly because of the presumption that to participate is the default position. Three groups identified as socially excluded groups in Northern Ireland are considered. It is argued that a more careful analysis of what social inclusion means, what civic engagement means, and why participation is presumed to be the norm, leads to a different conclusion about who is excluded. This has both theoretical and policy relevance for the much used concept of social inclusion.

Growth Coalitions and Rural Development Police in the EU and the US

A recent issue of EuroChoices (7:1) was devoted to a discussion of comparative US-EU rural development policies. This article discusses the concept of growth coalitions, well developed in urban literature but less so in rural literature. Some light is shed on the different positions of rural and environmental issues in EU and US policies. The agricultural lobby is the dominant actor in agricultural growth coalitions because it perceives land in terms of its exchange value. Environmental and rural development actors perceive land in terms of its use value and its contributions to quality of life: they form a rural development coalition, seeing the need to balance growth with quality of life, but they have less political power than the agricultural growth coalition. In the European context, rural and environmental agendas are linked to a multi-functional agricultural agenda allowing common ground between these two coalitions and greater visibility in the policy arena. In the US, rural interests and environmental groups are more often in opposition to agriculture. This reduces their political visibility and clout. The challenge is how to link the power of the agricultural growth coalitions with rural development coalitions to achieve a broader balance of concerns and a more effective rural development policy.

Social Inclusion or Market Competitiveness? A Comparison of Rural Development Policies in the European Union and the United States

The language of EU rural development policy appears more interested in social inclusion and that of US policy more interested in market competitiveness. We seek to determine why policies directed at rural development in the EU and the USA differ. In both contexts new rural development policies emphasize partnership and participation but we find local participation is used to promote social inclusion in the EU and market competitiveness in the USA. An examination of these dimensions illustrates important transcontinental differences and similarities in rural development policies. We explore the socio-historical reasons for differences in the commitment to social inclusion, while also noting similarities in the priority of market competitiveness.

Sustainable Rural Tourism: Lessons for Rural Development

Rural areas are recognised for their complex, multi-functional capacities with a range of different interest groups claiming their rights to, and use of, different rural spaces. The current rural development paradigm that is evident across the globe is epitomised by the European LEADER approach. Using evidence from the proposed National Park in Northern Ireland, we ask the question: what is the potential of sustainable rural tourism to contribute to rural development? Within our analysis we consider the scope for adaptive tourism to overcome some of the ongoing challenges that have been identified within the LEADER approach. Four themes are revealed from this analysis: institutional (in)capacity; legitimacy of local groups; navigating between stakeholder interests; and sustainable tourism in practice. These issues, discussed in turn, have clear implications for the new rural development programme.