Perspectives Rurales
The upcoming meetings of the “Perspectives Rurales” scientific and pedagogical network – which brings together professors and researchers from higher education institutions in architecture, agronomy, landscape architecture, and urban planning across France and Europe, along with the Fédération des Parcs Naturels Régionaux [Federation of Regional Nature Parks]– aim to explore how spatial planning and design practices are being redefined in light of the resistances and struggles transforming contemporary ruralities, through the following five themes:
1. Proposing alternatives: projects and counter-projects. Prevent or divert? Proceed regardless, but do things differently?
Practices, knowledge, and methods of design, spatial investigation, representation, and education are mobilized and re-examined in contexts of struggle, local mobilization, or resistance. What roles have these approaches played—and continue to play—in collective mobilizations? How do alternative projects or counter-projects help to articulate and reconcile conflicting interests, contribute to the creation of shared narratives, or, conversely, assert and radicalize positions?
2. Experimenting in the field: acting, building, transforming through mobilization. Struggle as a territorial laboratory?
Many mobilizations rely on forms of occupation, which may be more or less permanent. What spatial forms do these occupations take? How do they make broader demands visible? What visions of alternative futures emerge from these occupations, and in what ways? How does resistance fit into a temporality? What ideas about spatial projects emerge from or permeate these occupations?
3. Surviving on the margins: alternative ways of inhabiting places. Discreet forms of resistance?
Many forms of resistance can only arise and persistbyremaining marginal, operatingwithout directly challenging the dominant logic they oppose. How do these experiences challenge the dominant ecological discourse? Are rural areas, today as in the past, more welcoming to such alternatives than cities? Can these experiments move beyond the aspirations of small groups to form the foundation of broader territorial projects?
4. Connecting: to places and to others in the struggle. What local and global alliances?
Struggles often depend on the consolidation of collectives built around negotiated and shared positions. How does emphasizing territorial and spatial stakes help broaden mobilization and bring together residents and actors from diverse backgrounds? How do these movements intersect – today as in the past – with other local and global struggles (feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, decolonial, and beyond)?
5. Learning and teaching from struggles. What knowledge and learning circulate between activist and academic spheres?
Struggles – whether discreet or highly visible – mobilize and produce forms of knowledge that are shared and exchanged within activist networks. How is this knowledge transferred to spatial professionals and practitioners? What new perspectives does it open for the evolution of education and training? What kinds of research practices emerge from these encounters?