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- Convenors:
-
Sina Wohlgemuth
(University of Bonn)
Bernhard Tschofen (University of Zurich)
Oliver Müller (University of Bonn)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- Rural
- Location:
- Aula 9
- Sessions:
- Monday 15 April, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
Rural regions and rural imaginaries have currently become subject to different and partly divergent political negotiations and transformations. The panel highlights how discourses, policies, and actors transform everyday lifeworlds in rural regions under conditions of complex political regimes.
Long Abstract:
Rural regions as well as rural imaginaries have currently become subject to different and partly divergent political negotiations and transformations. For example, the return of wolves has fuelled contentious negotiations of ideas of rural nature and rural everyday lifeworlds in different European countries. Right-wing and conservative politics in Germany or Austria have built their ideas of "Heimat" (affective dimension of "homeland") fundamentally on nostalgic ideas of the rural. At the same time, rural regions and their inhabitants are subjected to EU structural and development policies such as LEADER, which aim to readjust rural economies implementing new forms of political and cultural participation. The panel aspires to track these different political processes.
By which material and discursive practices are rural imaginations and materialities transformed in the process of political negotiation? How should we link local everyday negotiations of the rural to transregional political dynamics? How do these political negotiations reformulate the dichotomy between the "rural" and the "urban"?
How do right-wing politics reshape the ideas and imaginations of the rural?
How do rural development policies transform subjectivities, everyday practices, and imaginations as well as materialities on the local level? Which perspectives are opened up for studying the transformation of political regimes by focusing on the everyday life implications of policies?
We invite papers presenting ethnographic research and/or theoretical thoughts, as well as historical research, on how to grasp these political negotiations and transformations of the rural. Contributions focusing on processes in eastern and southern European countries are especially welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 15 April, 2019, -Sina Wohlgemuth (University of Bonn) Oliver Müller (University of Bonn)
Paper short abstract:
Rural areas are addressed by political programmes. These have changed in recent decades: from top-down to bottom-up procedures, which aim at involving local residents in development processes. Within these arrangements, the border between civil society and state actors is increasingly blurred.
Paper long abstract:
Rural areas and their populations are addressed by political programs on various levels of governance. These have changed in recent decades: from top-down to bottom-up governance procedures, which intend to involve local residents in the development of their regions. In these arenas of participatory governance, the state-citizen relations are reworked as roles and responsibilities are renegotiated.
The contribution addresses these modes of participatory governance as a new rural paradigm. Based on ethnographic data such as participatory observations and interviews with actors from three rural regions, the contribution shows how "participation" of residents in the EU rural development program LEADER can be conceived of as a ritual performance.
Firstly, we argue that because of the indeterminacy of residents' "participation" in the policy texts, it has to be translated into a participatory methodology by local authorities. Secondly, as "participation" is far from being a self-evident every day practice, it has to be 'staged' in local arenas of participatory governance. We will illustrate the salience of roles, identities, and audience, embodiment, material artefacts and local knowledge, which we address as central elements for the enactment of "participation" in ritual performances. Taking the example of two such arenas, we show how residents are activated and involved to partake in the realization of two LEADER projects - one aimed at counterbalancing future development such as demographic change, the other to halt biodiversity loss.
Nicola Röhrer (University of Vienna)
Paper short abstract:
EU policies like the decision to drop the EU-wide milk quota change Austrian dairy farmers' lives. Choosing the ensuing "milk crisis" as the common thread, I trace its ambiguous meanings, complex political-economic interweaving and farmers' ideas on a good life and unwanted change.
Paper long abstract:
Brought about by the political decision to drop the EU-wide milk quota in March 2015 the "milk crisis" dominated the media and lent new urgency to the public protest of the Austrian dairy farmers' association "IG Milch" and their efforts to change the direction of current agricultural politics. Meanwhile life went on at the Lower Austrian organic dairy farm "Hinterleiten". Mother, father and son milked the cows twice a day, chatted with the driver of the milk tank truck and filled out forms for the authorities checking if they comply with the guidelines for organic production. The "milk crisis" seemed far away but nonetheless, the political decisions left traces in the farmers' daily lives making them wish for a change.
Seen through the lens of anthropological concepts of crisis my qualitative and ethnographic data speaks about Austrian dairy farmers' views on desirable and undesirable change. I examine the diverse and complex connections between the farmers' hopes for a good life and appreciation, their issues of criticism and judgment and the political-economic situation they find themselves in. What do the farmers' crisis claims entail in this context? What do they mean and what do they do?
These are the central questions I'm following in the course of working on my master thesis at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna.
Elisabeth Wollin Elhouar (School of History and Contemporary Studies)
Paper short abstract:
The refugee reception in Sweden 2015 has reshaped refugee policies and practices. It has had consequences of workloads for especially the small municipalities dealing with the reception. This paper deals with an ethnographic understanding of rural places and their capacities to handle this change.
Paper long abstract:
The so called refugee situation that occurred in Sweden during 2015 has reshaped the landscapes of refugee policies and practices in different ways. The situation has, for instance, had concrete consequences for the municipalities dealing with the reception of refugees. Especially small and rural municipalities have attested to complex and stressful workloads in relation to the reception. This paper deals with an ethnographic understanding of rural places and their capacities to handle this change. How has the reception work shaped the place based experiences in a tension field between local practices and political discourses? Material from two small municipalities, in Södermanland county and Uppland county, is collected, where focus group interviews with different types of municipal actors have been conducted. In this paper, theories on belonging, social capital and place are used to understand these processes but also to problematise their content. Results show one dominating strategy when coping with social change in relation to the local place; a focus on shaping the newcomers in order to cope with the changes in the community. The local communities showed a readiness for engagement and hospitality in relation to the reception but the processes also raise issues on expectations and responsibilities assigned to the newcomers. There is an underlying understanding that the newcomers have to learn the specific logic of the new place in order to adapt. In other words, the ambition is rather on transforming the newcomers than on reshaping the local community together.
Mattias Frihammar (Stockholm University) Lars Kaijser (Stockholm University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses practices and discourses in the municipality of Dalarna, Sweden where a war on lupines, considered invasive species, is going on. Lupines are described as dangerous intruders, out-conquering "native" plants, destroying the natural heritage and the traditional cultural environment.
Paper long abstract:
Invasive species are plants or animals introduced to areas outside their original range, often through human care. The last decades, the concept have attracted much attention from authorities, natural sciences, media and individuals. The discourse revolve around notions of threat, belonging, control, national/local heritage, and human responsibility toward nature in a changing world.
The lupine (also known as lupinus or lupine) is categorized as an invasive species in Sweden. It came to Sweden from North America in the first half of the 19th century as a garden plant, but have made a conceptual trajectory. What was then a beautiful and possibly useful flower is now seen as an alien element in the Swedish flora, and authorities and local groups work to limit the spread of it.
This paper focuses the municipality of Dalarna (Dalecarlia), where the authorities have been extra active in a war on lupines. On their website, in pamphlets and at official meetings, the municipal describes Lupines as dangerous intruders, that out-conquer other plants, threat the natural heritage, and spoil the traditional cultural environment. A challenge for the authorities has been the fact that people in general find lupines beautiful and appealing.
The analysis scrutinizes the practices and discourses in the municipality's when they re-interpret the lupine as unwanted. Applying the concept of assemblage, the (new) status of the lupine as a dangerous and ugly feature in the landscape stand forward as an (possible) effect of relations between species, other objects, emotions and different spirits of time.
Yan Wang (University of Lausanne)
Paper short abstract:
The world heritage site of Honghe Hani rice terrace in China is undergoing rapid change because of urbanizaiton and heritage tourism. The research studies the transformation of the rural landscape and analyze how it was co-shaped by different institutions and actors.
Paper long abstract:
The World Heritage Site of Honghe hani rice terrace, also a poverty-striken marginal rural region in Southern China, is undergoing rapid change because of urbanization and heritage tourism. Influenced by out-migration and changing ways of living in urbanization, the place sees a tendency of losing its rice terrace landscape and traditional housings. However, heritage tourism tends to keep the authentic past, valorise them for tourism purposes and diversifies rural livelihood strategies. The place stands at this development tragectories, where the same resources are subjected to different uses by different actors.
Seeing place as a social construct, the research seeks to answer the questions of how the site is transformed in urbanization and heritage tourism? And what's the negotiation and co-construction process by different institutions, practices and actors? The reseach aims to describle the transformation of traditional settlements and rice terraces and describle the place-making process. To answer the questions and achieve the objectives, the research uses a mixed of methods including direct observation, participant oberservation, interviews; collects various data of images, words, narratives and statistics, and analyze them qualitatively and quanlitatively.
It is hoped that the research would reexamin and readapt the concept of heritage, reveal the conflicts it entails in development, bring more thoughts from a functional perspective on heritage in relation to rural development, and give concrete suggestions on the management and development of the place.
Sophie Elpers (Meertens Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences)
Paper short abstract:
This paper describes negotiations on new architectures in the countryside in the Netherlands and analyses them against the backdrop of diverse concepts of rurality.
Paper long abstract:
In the Netherlands next to debates about deserted farms and the urgent need for assigning new functions to the farmhouses there is an ongoing discussion about new architectures in the countryside. On the one hand, it is about new modern agricultural buildings, which characterize the landscape for already some years and reflect the industrialization and the scaling up of farms.
On the other hand, it is about dwellings which can be described as neo-traditional. Cottages and stately homes are built which seem to originate from earlier centuries because of their outer appearance. The imaginations of rurality of the builders and dwellers are materialized in these buildings and one can track an intertwinement between representations and everyday realities in the countryside. The focus of this paper is on the debates about the buildings, in which different actors negotiate about imaginations and ideas about living in the countryside and the realities of daily life. Through the involvement of policymakers - like the Government Architect of The Netherlands or the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands - local discussions turn to transregional political negotiations about the rural.
The analysis of these negotiations gives insight in the different views on ruralities and rural life, the many layers of meaning and power hidden in the concept of rurality, the contrasts in it and the complexity of the ideas behind it.
Raili Nugin (Tallinn University) Tarmo Pikner (Tallinn University)
Paper short abstract:
The presentation will analyse three case studies, where rural communities have to deal with the Soviet-era architectural legacies established by architectural historians and cultural policy. We will show how different ideological representations of countryside affect the rural everyday.
Paper long abstract:
Rural landscapes are typically imagined featuring old farm or manor houses, preferably dating back in centuries. However, rural built environment also holds legacies from later periods (e.g. the Soviet era), which meanings and connotations are still negotiated in discursive fields. In Estonia, much of the Soviet rural architecture consists of various agricultural premises, many of which have been falling apart after the dissolution of the collective farms in the 1990s, contributing to the discourse of backward rural areas. Besides the agricultural houses, other premises were built. In the 1970-80s, the young generation of open-minded architects projected a number of public buildings in rural areas. Though for art historians their aesthetic value is high, this view is rarely shared by local communities. In this presentation, we will discuss three case studies, where local communities face the dilemma of dealing with the built Soviet-era legacies and entangled heritage established by architectural historians and cultural policy. The cases reveal diverse tensions, adaptations, durations and failures in accommodating social practices with quasi-rural infrastructures of the collapsed regime. Rather than analysing the architectural value of the buildings, we seek to open the complex process of negotiations between policy makers, local communities and cultural elite in co-producing the cultural heritage and the rural. Based on interviews with different key stakeholders, Facebook posts, observations and media analysis, we will show how mobilised politics and different ideological representations of countryside affect the rural everyday.
András Vajda (Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania)
Paper short abstract:
The aim of the paper is to explore the present and the recent past of Romanian rural society, and analysing the coexistence, interlocking, and conflicts of the traditional and the newly manifesting cultural behaviours in the past decade.
Paper long abstract:
The basic goal of the presentation is to explore the present and the recent past (which is preserved by the memory of the individuals, along with the one that can be reconstructed on the basis of personal documents) of Romanian rural society, and analysing the coexistence, interlocking, and conflicts of the archaic/traditional (but nevertheless continually changing) and the formerly inexistent, newly manifesting (e.g. online) cultural behaviours in the past decade. The paper models the forms or rurality specific for the 21st century and offers a new, comprehensive frame of interpretation for the ethnographic approach to rurality and to the understanding of the recently emerging rural attitudes