The changing face of the contemporary countryside

Abstract

This book is a result of the 20th Annual Colloquium of the Commission on the Sustainability of Rural Systems (CSRS) of the International Geographical Union (IGU) held at the Université Paul Vallery Montpellier 3 in August, 2012, in Montpellier, France. The chapters are based on presentations from the meeting but each underwent a process of peer review by an international advisory committee, which together with comments and suggestions made at the meeting, enhanced the quality of the contributions. As contributions display a diversity of contemporary trends in the countryside of diferent countries with an emphasis on local people who seek to devise sustainable land use and rural livelihoods. The chapters treat how changing global, regional and national farm and environmental policies provoke rural transformations at the same time that rural people come under increasing pressure from transnational agribusiness. The authors explore how when faced with these pressures local actors adapt and innovate in novel ways in the speci- c contexts of each country. In the process new rural functions and values are constructed involving creative forms of connectivity and governance in order to achieve their aims. As contributions display a diversity of contemporary trends in the countryside of diferent countries with an emphasis on local people who seek to devise sustainable land use and rural livelihoods. The chapters treat how changing global, regional and national farm and environmental policies provoke rural transformations at the same time that rural people come under increasing pressure from transnational agribusiness. The authors explore how when faced with these pressures local actors adapt and innovate in novel ways in the speci- c contexts of each country. In the process new rural functions and values are constructed involving creative forms of connectivity and governance in order to achieve their aims.