Sociology and Space, No. 146, 1999.
Review article
Globalization and Rural Development
Ivan Cifrić
Abstract
The author’s starting thesis is that in planning and designing rural development, a complex
relation between the settlement, the agriculture and the environment should be a starting
point. The changes of rural characteristics, influenced by processes of globalization, bring
the changes (the raise) of value of rural areas and rural culture. The rural world is a part
of so-called “fourth world” (natural, variegated, autochthonous, local, self-sustainable one),
a part of unrepeatable nature and culture, and therefore it seemingly has a value by itself.
The idea of “sustainability” changes the attitude towards the village and agriculture in two
directions: towards the implementation of genetic technology, as the continuation of the
course of modernization, and towards the maintenance of their rural originality, as the protection
of natural and cultural heritage. The conception of rural development should
accomplish the three goals: the protection of biosphere, economic stability and equal social
chances. Global social and ecological crises change the framework of perception of rural
areas and culture. The village and rural areas are ever less being thought of as of the natural
resources base, the backward parts of the country with no future prospects, and are
more and more being perceived as environmental values and original knowledge. In this
paper, the author discussed the problems such as: is there a rural culture and which are its
forms; what are the prospectives of rural culture; what concept of rural development and
of rural culture development could be possible, if any concept at all? Together with the disappearance
of rural substratum the rural culture vanishes as well. It will maintain only to
the degree to which the elements of rural society exist, or only on symbolic level as a functional
factor. Rural development is not only the issue of economy and technology, it is as
well a question of culture, i.e. the question of social construction of the natural state of
society. At the end of the paper, the author points up the necessity of space naturalness
preservation and of maintenance of biological and cultural diversity, and all this presuming
the work and education to be modernized in a spirit of universal values.
Keywords
globalization; modernization; agriculture; rural development; rural cult
Hrčak ID:
119977
URI
Publication date:
10.12.1999.
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