Les trois vi-e-s des territoires ruraux : voyage en France ou ailleurs

Abstract

Rural areas are changing: they are forging new relationships with the urban world. The planet is urbanizing: it is the seat of many flows. These dynamics, which extend over large spaces, obscure those that take place nearby, at low density, in territories where, however, we are witnessing a proliferation of initiatives. However, these are living territories which transform the world, by articulating the urban and the rural, by assuming a mutual solidarity, by crossing the limits and the borders. To support these dynamics of change, territorial engineering must promote inter-territoriality, the integration of scales and worlds, and the recognition of social and territorial innovations. But even more, it must involve all the stakeholders, to give life to the territories, by building a shared vision of the territory and implementing collective actions, by anchoring them in the territory, and by making them visible and sensitive. This conceptual framework of territorial engineering for, by and with rural territories is the result of ongoing partnership research with the territory of Grand Clermont and the Livradois-Forez Regional Natural Park, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, in France, which “invents the territories of tomorrow” around its territorial food project. There are new avenues to explore, which challenge the classic processes of scientific production and construction of action. The rigor of the methodological routes constructed and the assumed diversity of the devices allow us to build in genericity. The imagination values this diversity and produces the future of the territories.