Emerging trends in rural development in India

Abstract

The reversal of rural-urban “traditional migration patterns in the last 20 years and the diffusion of non-agricultural activities in rural areas indicate that recent trends in rural development have not followed expected patterns. The paper retraces these recent changes, using as examples the case of France and Italy, two countries with quite different patterns of economic and social development. It follows the characteristics of the real processes under way on the one hand and the conceptualizations and categories used to understand them on the other. The paper concludes that recent trends require a thorough theoretical revision of the traditional assumptions in the social sciences. It suggests that the rural-urban criteria of spatial differentiation is losing significance while the regional or local economy approach provides a more useful framework, to explore the relevant criteria for differentiating rural” development