Acknowledging differentiation in local transition pathways as a key for policy targeting: contributions from South European complexity

Abstract

Transition theories suggest that there is a spatial, temporal and structural co-existence of several processes of transition from productivism to post-productivism going on in rural areas. This is particularly true for South European landscapes dominated by extensive agro-silvo-pastoral systems or small-scale mosaic farming, in some cases just entering the productivist phase, let alone moving towards post-productivism, both in terms of discourse and management practices. However, these are landscapes increasingly valued by society due to their potential for the delivery of public goods and services related with environmental quality, nature conservation, landscape character and cultural identity. This encourages new ways of managing the land, combining production with the delivery of public goods, and new strategies for farm survival – though it requires new management paradigms, not only at the farm level but also in public interventions. Through the reordering in the three basic purposes underlying human use of rural space (production, consumption and protection), transition can be characterized as a shift from the formerly dominant production goals towards a more complex, contested, variable mix of production, consumption and protection goals. Socio-economic, political, cultural and environmental complex patterns are mobilized for this transition at the local level, strongly determining the reaction capacity to global drivers and policy mechanisms, by individuals. Territorial capital is a central concept in understanding these processes and grasping the emerging new differentiation of the rural, particularly complex and challenging in areas where production agriculture is most fragile. This paper will discuss an integrated approach for a typology of rural local areas, based on their transition capacity and aimed at addressing policy targeting for a differentiated countryside. An application to Southern Portugal, in Mediterranean Europe, will be presented.