engleski

Croatian Rurality Re-Examined: Globalized Plurality and Local Context

For decades the main societal context and the principal economic driver in rural areas was agriculture. Consequently, agricultural policy has been used almost as a universal tool for planning and regulating countryside since 1960’s. But today it is becoming increasingly apparent that agriculture in many rural regions is not the main economic activity and that economic diversification into e.g. tourism and other activities has changed the ways in which rural areas are lived and perceived. As a result, we have witnessed the (re)emergence of heterogeneous and diversified rural areas, contrasting depopulation and land abandonment in some regions, and urbanization or agricultural intensification in others. Global rural today takes many forms and the challenges that different areas face require intelligent, regionally targeted delivery responses. In other words, it is dangerous to generalise about the countryside, since different areas face different problems. Policies and strategies for rural planning and development, in order to be effective, should recognize that diversity. On the other hand, rural areas in Croatia are almost synonymous with problem areas. On average, they are characterized by deep structural and dynamic disorders in demographic, social, and economic development, and stagnation in regional development. The cumulative effects thereof place increasing burdens on development and weaken the state’s spatial and functional integration. The most marked crisis features can be observed in the karst periphery, including a part of the important strategic border zone. The Homeland War and the transition to a market economy were among the last very influential elements of the spatial and regional transformation of the country. The aim of the research was to re- examine this dominant perspective on Croatian rurality using typological approach based on advanced multivariate techniques. Six main types of rural areas have been recognized including territorially dominant rural periphery, but also including market oriented agricultural areas, economically diversified, mainly tourist areas and accessible, commuting dependent rural and urbanized settlements. The plurality of Croatian rurality was further investigated using in- depth interviews with important local actors in each recognized type, in order to counter-balance the dominant quantitative approach in the first part of the study. Results indicates complex interplay between academic assessment of «globalized rural» and local understanding of everyday rurality.

rural areas; plurality; local actors

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