- Convenors:
-
Eloi Sendrós Ferrer
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Sara Escudero Rubio (University of Paris Nanterre)
Marguerite Maclouf (EHESS - Centre Maurice Halbwachs)
Gala Aguero (Clersé - UMR DévSoc)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Network:
- Network Panel
Short Abstract
This panel explores ruralities as frontiers of possibilities within contemporary capitalism, examining how rural worlds are shaped through processes of value and function assignment, as well as how the imaginaries inform, constrain, or enable these processes.
Long Abstract
Rural spaces are assigned industrial, agricultural, extractive, conservationist, residential, or touristic values, appearing today as frontiers of possibilities within contemporary capitalism. The notion of frontier refers to a process that results from the attribution of values and functions to a space, but also from projections and imaginaries seeking to transform it (Tsing 2003). Against an historical tendency to study ruralities as peripheral, subordinate and local, rural worlds emerge as complex social spaces, dialectically articulated with the uneven movement of capitalism (Harvey 2001). They appear as a lens for analyzing these processes, whether in terms of the global division of space and labor, productive and ecosocial transformations, or North–South and centre–periphery relations.
This panel aims to interrogate ruralities as frontiers of possibilities, questioning their assignment to specific values and functions —shaped both by State and capital logics— and the ensuing forms of domination over resources, spaces, and cultures (Buier and Franquesa 2022). On another level, it explores the frictions between these different values and imaginaries, and asks how those who inhabit rural worlds participate, appropriate or contest these processes of (de)valorisation and disqualification, through the assertion of their own experience. In this light, how does ethnography reveal the ways in which institutional, market, and financial logics shape ruralities under contemporary capitalism? How rural dwellers respond to the industrial, agricultural, extractive, conservationist, residential, or touristic valorisation of their everyday milieu ?
The panel originates from the newly network Anthropology Across Ruralities (ACRU), and aims to take a step in articulating a dynamic space for discussions and debates around ruralities, their complexity, and their heterogeneity .