Vol. 51 No. 204 (2021): Forgotten Land? Perspectives on Rural Development

"The country" has been "in" again for some time. It is seen as the backbone of sustainable development and, in view of the Covid 19 pandemic, as a supposedly safe place . On the other hand, "disconnectedness" is associated with the countryside, which - it is said - has enabled right-wing parties to win an above-average number of votes. Of course, urban and rural areas are interrelated and cannot be sharply demarcated from each other; nevertheless, one can speak of rural areas experiencing a specific transformation: through demographic changes due to selective immigration and emigration, through the fundamental change of agricultural markets and the loss of relevance of the primary sector, through the disappearance and re-emergence of rural infrastructures and through the erosion - accompanying all this - of previously formative networks and social structures. These transformations are not without conflict, as evidenced by land grabbing, protests against new energy infrastructures or school closures, villages divided between "old-established" and "newcomers", or the media stigmatisation of entire regions as "desolate". A social left as well as critical science have hardly been present in these conflicts so far - time to change that.