Rural change in the context of globalization : examining theoretical issues

Abstract

Early discussions and theoretical positions concerning rural change were developed by researchers from countries with post-production economies in order to explain the rural transformations. When discussing economic change in rural space over the last decades, Marsden, T. et al. (1993) presented a new perspective for understanding rural restructuring that includes new subjects, such as capital mobility, flexible production regimes, complexity in the relationship between technology and environment, economic deregulation and new political processes. According to these authors, in order to understand such processes, it is necessary to research the effects of globalization at local scale of action. A recurrent theme in rural studies has been the significance of diverse globalization processes as drivers of rural change (Marsden, Ploeg, J.D. van der et al. 2010). In summary, this article forms a critique of the simplistic assumptions formulated in the literature regarding spatial change, which assumes the rural is essentially subject to external actions. I argue that the rural space should also be seen to possess its own dynamics which contribute to complex pathways and so adapts to new scenarios of spatial change in the contemporary world.T

Measuring and Predicting Long-Term Land Cover Changes in the Functional Urban Area of Budapest

“…The rapid expansion of artificial surfaces in metropolitan regions has caused versatile conflicts between nature and society and has created challenges for sustainability [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Urban fringe areas are especially under the pressure of "urban sprawl", as substantial areas of agricultural land along city boundaries have been converted into urbanized surfaces [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Land cover changes in suburban locations are driven by very complex socioeconomic factors and often result in environmental damage, landscape degradation, land fragmentation, and the shrinkage of wildlife habitat and undermine peri-urban agricultural capacity for examining long-term land use changes in the Budapest FUA from the late 1950s to 2040; however, they did not pay attention to the loss of farmland and the restructuring of the agricultural sector.…”

Examining a theoretical concept: (Im)mobility as a factor of perforation in a rural Hungarian context

“…The framework for research is rural restructuring, which largely covers the research dilemmas listed (Halfacree, 2006;Lowe et al, 1993;Marsden et al, 1990), although they may be quite different in their nature and approach to the topic. In the process of rural restructuring, the countryside reflects a reorganized socio-economic system as a result of modernization and post-modern transition, where the transformation of rural societies is governed by the need to adapt (Da Silva Machado, 2017;Halfacree, 2006;Woods, 2005;Woods, 2011). Adaptation manifests itself in achieving a higher level of mobility, which means social and spatial mobility at the same time, requiring a degree of flexibility for the success of economic restructuring and, finally, a kind of identity change by settlement communities through job centralization and specialization (Clout, 1972;Massey, 1984;Milbourne, 1997;Milbourne & Kitchen, 2014;Tigges et al,1998).…”