On the future of local communities in rural areas

Abstract

When discussing the future of rural areas for rural sociology (which aims at developing a holistic approach), the most important issue is certainly the question of fate of local communities in rural areas. Reviewing the enormous literature on countryside and agriculture, one can notice an overwhelming dominance of articles that focus on the agrarian and economic policy, often written fairly in the form of agro-economic reductionism. The totality of human life in rural communities is often lost in the fragmentary analysis of individual scientific disciplines. That is why there is a lack of knowledge on the meaning and content of (new) rurality, rural relationships, rural values, rural communities, rural ways of life and on integral rural development in conceptual-theoretical as well as in practical-empirical sense. This problem, understandably, affects different aspects of the complex phenomenon of "rurality" in our situation. However, regardless of the evident insufficiency of synthetic knowledge about our countryside as a social community, it is clearly evident that rural areas are in deep crisis. Local communities in the majority of our rural areas are completely marginalised. Great number of these communities are in the process of disintegration and disappearance. They have lost a "spirit of time" and identity and have not acquired a new one. Furthermore, in some rural areas local communities have literally vanished. In other words, it is difficult to find in our society any active rural communities with a clear future prospects. That is why the crucial question for social theory as well as for social practice is: Which are the economic, demographic, technological and especially socio-cultural prerequisites of renewal and development of local communities in the near future? Without their revitalisation there is no development of rural areas and vice versa. In the focus of this renewal there should be an adequate spatial, functional, organic and emotional connection of people living there. In other words, their participation and their self-identification with these communities is a key prerequisite. Although the renewal of our rural communities is an extremely difficult task, filled with many dilemmas, inconsistencies and objective contradictions, it is not unresolvable, at least for one type of these communities. With the well-thought strategy of planning and management of rural development, these processes can be accelerated and channelled in the desired direction. This paper discusses some possible solutions and gives more concrete propositions in relation to this problem.