Rural Marginalisation and the Role of Social Innovation; A Turn Towards Nexogenous Development and Rural Reconnection

Abstract

Rural development in Europe is a long‐standing issue that has been supported through EU policies in various ways. The effects of rural development have been uneven, and differences between well‐to‐do and marginal rural areas have been increasing both across and within countries. This process is reinforced by the current financial crisis. Recently, social innovation has been introduced as the new panacea for realising development and growth while, at the same time, warranting social inclusion and counteracting social inequality. A central question of this article is whether social innovation may help to effectively fight rural marginalisation, why that could be the case and what conditions then must be met. Three examples of rural social innovation are used to distil specific features of social innovation and compare them with other concepts and approaches to rural development. Rural social innovation is distinctive in its dependence on civic self‐reliance and self‐organisation due to austerity measures and state withdrawal, and its cross‐sectoral and translocal collaborations. This article concludes that it is time to go beyond earlier ideas of exogenous versus (neo‐)endogenous development and introduces the idea of nexogenous development with socio‐political reconnection as an engine of revitalisation.

Social Innovation and Sustainable Rural Development: The Case of a Brazilian Agroecology Network

“…Following Schumpeter's lead, subsequent research on innovation focused on economic and technological issues within urban contexts. However, in the literature there is still little focus on rural areas and social innovation initiatives, apart from the significant contribution of a few authors [2][3][4][5].…”

“…In his opinion, social innovation is the foundation of sustainable rural development. Bock [5] highlights the importance of the "global financial crisis, which produced massive public budget cuts" to stimulate the prominence of "self-determination, self-help and self-reliance as components of social innovation" [5] (pp. 555-556).…”

Place-Based Rural Development and Resilience: A Lesson from a Small Community

“…Rebuilding this sense of community and ties, usually described as social capital [22,37,42], is a prerequisite for any type of intervention to foster development. The social innovations introduced within the community, built mainly on the re-activation and re-connection of disconnected elements of natural, economic, social, and institutional capitals, proved effective in interrupting or, at least, counterbalancing the effects of rural marginalization [2].…”

“…In recent decades, inner rural areas have experienced major economic and social changes that have sometimes resulted in increasing marginalization associated with primary sector dominance, insufficient infrastructure in terms of roads and public services, economic and demographic transition and population decline, and, hence, rising unemployment, outmigration of economically active groups, and ageing (Copus et al, 2011 [1] in [2]) [3,4]. The insufficient provision of essential services, reinforced by the recent financial crisis, is the result of a concentration process also "re-enforced by an emerging and dominating policy intentionality associated with urban-based agglomeration and spatial interpretations of urban-based efficiencies through arguments based on 'economies of scale"' [5], (p. 605).…”

The Opinion of Rural School Children About the Development of Rural Areas and Sustainable Management Opportunities in Latvia

“…), demographic change (growing elderly population) and new types of work resources (school-worktransition; youth unemployment; long-term unemployment), municipality (as initiator or partner in projects) (KoSI, 2017). Social innovations could help more successful realization of rural development and growth by replacing governmental involvement and instead building on citizens and enterprises as self-reliant development actors who take change and development into their own hands making up social innovation as important driver for successful rural development and fight against rural marginalization (Neumeier, 2017;Bock, 2016).…”