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.