Abstract
In the year 2000 a multidisciplinary team of social scientists from several
European countries argued, in a joint article published in Sociologia Ruralis
(2000), that rural development basically was practice without theory (van
der Ploeg et al. 2000)2. Since then, rural development processes in Europe
have gained considerable momentum and resulted in a dazzling array of
new practices characterized by new dynamics and unanticipated impacts.
Nevertheless, in 2006 the OECD again referred to the need for ‘a new
research agenda in rural development’ (2006:19), implying that the nature,
dynamics and heterogeneity of rural development processes, as they
unfold in practice, were inadequately expressed in new theoretical
frameworks. At the same time, rural development policies have continued
to develop at supra-national, national, regional and local levels and, in the
social sciences there have been some major shifts (away from earlier and,
in retrospect, too limited and inflexible, models) that allow for a better
understanding of a rapidly changing world.