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Uneven development in Southern Europe: Studies of accumulation, class, migration and the state
Book called ‘animateurs’. The formal origin of this approach in England is probably the introduction by the Development Commission of the Community Initiative in the Countryside Scheme’ in the early 1970s. Under this scheme virtually every county in England now has a rural officer whose job is specifically to encourage voluntary activity in the rural communities and to be an adviser to and innovator of new projects. While the scheme has been very successful, there has been the inevitable problem of one person attempting to cover a large area. Accordingly, where resources permit, there have been a number of individual projects on a much reduced geographical scale. This report details one of these projects - a three-year exercise starting in 1982 and covering an area of about 50 parishes in north-east Suffolk. While there are a number of reports and papers giving assessments of similar projects, this one is different in a number of respects and as such deserves a wide audience. First it ran for three years and therefore the Project Officer was able to see the results of his endeavours more clearly than is possible with shorter projects. Second, there was from the very beginning a ‘consultant/assessor’ appointed who is the author of the present monograph. The Waveney Project Report is therefore a much more realistic and less subjective review of the success of the project than is often the case where final reports are written by the participants themselves. The report consists in the main of a description of the many initiatives and schemes which the project worker, David Wallace. introduced and helped during his three years. In excess of 20 major activities were undertaken ranging from the production of a local newsletter to the development of a group of entrepreneurs involved with providing farm and country holidays. The initiatives covered all aspects of rural life - sport and recreation, village facilities, environmental improvements, transport, employment and information. The second part of the report provides an evaluation by Dr Moseley of the activities of the project. He comments on individual projects but perhaps more usefully for the outside reader he is able to give some measured views on the whole idea of the project officer approach and the suitability of the voluntary action idea in rural development. His conclusions are realistic: he shows that voluntary action can go a long way towards alleviating many, but by no means all, of the social problems that exist in contemporary rural Britain. The project officer approach is, he concludes, one which has real potential in this area. The limitations of both these ideas are also clear. Some initiatives failed because of lack of voluntary support. Others were non-starters because the problems were perceived as being beyond the capabilities of local residents. And Moseley is quite right in pointing to the essentially apolitical platform on which the project officer involved with voluntary action is often forced to operate. Unlike some commentators he is also able to see the positive side of this limitation. In other words, a more aggressively political stance might often close as many doors as it might open. All in all this is a very readable and worthwhile publication which deserves to be read by academics and practitioners alike. ALAN ROGERS Wye College (University of London), U.K.
Reviews
173
Uneven Development in Southern Europe: Studies of Accumulation, Class, Migration and the State, R. Hudson and J. Lewis, 1985. Methuen, London, f32.50 (hardback)
There have been major social and economic changes in Southern Europe in the past three decades, not least in the transformation of rural areas. This volume is a valuable addition to the steadily expanding literature on these themes for it brings together some of the more original commentators on the region. We are presented with selected papers from a conference held at Durham in 1982 and the editors are to be congratulated on their final product. There is evidence of firm editorial control from the thorough introduction, through the heavily crossreferenced case-studies to the extensive bibliography. Many of the contributions also represent first translations into English of research work previously reported only in, say, Portuguese or Turkish. The general theme of the volume is evident in the sub-title and. other than the introduction and a general concluding essay on legitimation, we are presented with 11 case studies - three on migration, two on agriculture, two on manufacturing, and four on uneven regional development and the state. Their geographical arena is the northern Mediterranean from Turkey to Portugal, but excluding Yugoslavia and Albania. Most of the papers have roots in critical social science but their -approaches are diverse: Giner’s essay on political economy and legitimation is wide-ranging and relatively abstract, Ferrao’s analyses profit equalisation in Portugal within a narrow but rigorous framework, while Toepfer’s study of return migrants in Trabzon is heavily empirical. Given the importance of agriculture and of rural areas in the economies of and consciousness of Southern Europe, readers of this journal will find something of interest in all the chapters. However, specific mention can be made of three groups of papers. First, there is a trio of essays on emigration and return. Keles’ general review of return to Turkey highlights the importance of urban drift which has tended to deny rural areas of the investment and employment skills (however limited) of returnees. This is substantiated in Toepfer’s very thorough case study of Trabzon: his analysis of life histories of occupational and geographical mobility confirms that return is associated with movement of a productive work, out of agriculture and out of rural areas. Instead, urban residence, early retirement or employment in the service industries, and improved consumption are the usual outcomes. King et al.‘s study of Leverano broadly confirms these findings, although they also found a high degree of frustrated occupational mobility amongst those who had intended to obtain industrial employment but had failed to do so. Their chapter also encompasses a discussion of how returned migration has contributed to the social and spatial reorganisation of village communities. Taken together, these three essays illustrate one of the strengths of this book - absence of excessive generalisation but attention to specific contexts. The second group of papers examines agriculture. Pugliese provides a broad social analysis of how migration and agricultural reform have led to class decomposition and recomposition in rural Italy. In the South there have been reductions in the proletariat and the peasantry and the growth of welfarism, while in the North the system of social assistance has ensured the supply of cheap, casual
174
Book Reviews
labour required by capitalist agriculture. In contrast, Garcia Ramon analyses in detail the changes in agriculture in Baix Camp in Catalonia; here the family farm has persisted, not only in the face of modernisation and productivity increases but as a way of coping with these. Whether it can contmu? to do so given the competing demands of the Tarragona oil and petro-chemical industry is doubtful. The third group of studies are those which examine rural areas in context of uneven regional development. Koffman’s chapter on Corsica is a very thorough analysis of the process of development and the inadequacy of state policies, while Kielstra presents an outstanding essay on Languedoc. He develops the concept of ‘relictual space’ in a rural region which has passed from periphery status to non-integration in the larger economic system, and shows the social and political implications of this new position. The scope of the book is already ambitious but, I suspect. readers of this journal would have wished it to have been even broader and to have included more material on, say, land reform or diffuse industrialisation. This, however, would have made it 500 instead of 400 pages in length and would have pushed the outrageous price of f32.50 even higher. Despite this. the book can be warmly recommended to the researcher and the advanced undergraduate. interested in either the region or in rural studies. For once it is appropriate to quote and agree with the publishers’ blurb that: ‘This scholarly and authoritative collection is an essential reference in the analysis of the significant changes now taking place within southern Europe’. ALLAN WILLIAMS Exeter University, II. K.
The Changing Countryside and the Countryside Handhook, 1985, J. Blunden and N. Curry (eds), 2 ~01s. 269 pp. and 97 pp., Open University, Milton Keynes and Croom Helm, London, f11.95 and f5.95
Produced as texts for an Open University short course, these two volumes provide by themselves a detailed and rigorous introduction to rural change in Britain. Moreover they are as richly varied in form and appearance as are the rural landscapes whose passing they lament. A profusion of maps and diagrams, photographs - both ancient and modern and several in colour - cartoons and newspaper cuttings enliven a carefully written text.
The core of Volume 1 comprises four extended essays on key issues: expanding agricultural productivity, containing settlements, conserving the wild, sustaining rural communities. Each is treated in a time dimension, examining in turn the history of the issue, the current situation and the prospects of change. A feature of these chapters is the inclusion of extended quotations from various protagonists such as an NFU spokesman, a West Country farmer. a county council farm conservation adviser, a parish council clerk, an Oxfordshire planner and a Hertfordshire property consultant. These add real-world colour and confirm the essentially political nature of the key issues - as does the inclusion of ‘who benefits, who loses?’ sections at the end of each chapter. A penultimate chapter, on alternative futures, provides a dozen scenarios each by a different writer and each of 1000 words or so. In a few pages we read impassioned pleas for sustaining the countryside by persuasion, by imposing planning controls and by restructuring farm support policies. Others put forward their farming utopias, ranging from a low energy, high-labour model to one involving computer-managed efficiency with hardly any labour input at all. These personal visions are followed by a chapter reviewing policy instruments and how it is that change is to be managed. Perhaps not surprisingly, a revamped concern for ‘Integrated Rural Development’ emerges as a frontrunner. A companion volume provides a mass of complementary factual material, though it can stand as a work of reference in its own right. It comprises four sections dealing with: government legislation, official bodies, private groups, significant documents. The first, for example, summarises the essential elements of about 50 pieces of legislation from the Town Planning Act of 1909 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. The second takes us from the EEC’s Directorate General for Agriculture to the parish council. Each subsection sets out some background, an essential description and a paragraph of comment and advice on further reading. Concise and punchy, this volume is an invaluable aid for teacher, researcher and student. A superb synthesis of material from scores of the real achievement of these volumes is that the wherewithal for the reader to draw conclusions. And they do so in a thoroughly attractive way. In short, they show the Open its best.
contributors. they provide his/her own literate and University at
MALCOLM MOSELEY University of East Anglia, U.K.
Book Reviewers If you would like your name to he added to the hook review roster for Journalof Rural Studiesplease write to the Editor providing your name, address and a resume of your fields of interest.
Reviews
173
Uneven Development in Southern Europe: Studies of Accumulation, Class, Migration and the State, R. Hudson and J. Lewis, 1985. Methuen, London, f32.50 (hardback)
There have been major social and economic changes in Southern Europe in the past three decades, not least in the transformation of rural areas. This volume is a valuable addition to the steadily expanding literature on these themes for it brings together some of the more original commentators on the region. We are presented with selected papers from a conference held at Durham in 1982 and the editors are to be congratulated on their final product. There is evidence of firm editorial control from the thorough introduction, through the heavily crossreferenced case-studies to the extensive bibliography. Many of the contributions also represent first translations into English of research work previously reported only in, say, Portuguese or Turkish. The general theme of the volume is evident in the sub-title and. other than the introduction and a general concluding essay on legitimation, we are presented with 11 case studies - three on migration, two on agriculture, two on manufacturing, and four on uneven regional development and the state. Their geographical arena is the northern Mediterranean from Turkey to Portugal, but excluding Yugoslavia and Albania. Most of the papers have roots in critical social science but their -approaches are diverse: Giner’s essay on political economy and legitimation is wide-ranging and relatively abstract, Ferrao’s analyses profit equalisation in Portugal within a narrow but rigorous framework, while Toepfer’s study of return migrants in Trabzon is heavily empirical. Given the importance of agriculture and of rural areas in the economies of and consciousness of Southern Europe, readers of this journal will find something of interest in all the chapters. However, specific mention can be made of three groups of papers. First, there is a trio of essays on emigration and return. Keles’ general review of return to Turkey highlights the importance of urban drift which has tended to deny rural areas of the investment and employment skills (however limited) of returnees. This is substantiated in Toepfer’s very thorough case study of Trabzon: his analysis of life histories of occupational and geographical mobility confirms that return is associated with movement of a productive work, out of agriculture and out of rural areas. Instead, urban residence, early retirement or employment in the service industries, and improved consumption are the usual outcomes. King et al.‘s study of Leverano broadly confirms these findings, although they also found a high degree of frustrated occupational mobility amongst those who had intended to obtain industrial employment but had failed to do so. Their chapter also encompasses a discussion of how returned migration has contributed to the social and spatial reorganisation of village communities. Taken together, these three essays illustrate one of the strengths of this book - absence of excessive generalisation but attention to specific contexts. The second group of papers examines agriculture. Pugliese provides a broad social analysis of how migration and agricultural reform have led to class decomposition and recomposition in rural Italy. In the South there have been reductions in the proletariat and the peasantry and the growth of welfarism, while in the North the system of social assistance has ensured the supply of cheap, casual
174
Book Reviews
labour required by capitalist agriculture. In contrast, Garcia Ramon analyses in detail the changes in agriculture in Baix Camp in Catalonia; here the family farm has persisted, not only in the face of modernisation and productivity increases but as a way of coping with these. Whether it can contmu? to do so given the competing demands of the Tarragona oil and petro-chemical industry is doubtful. The third group of studies are those which examine rural areas in context of uneven regional development. Koffman’s chapter on Corsica is a very thorough analysis of the process of development and the inadequacy of state policies, while Kielstra presents an outstanding essay on Languedoc. He develops the concept of ‘relictual space’ in a rural region which has passed from periphery status to non-integration in the larger economic system, and shows the social and political implications of this new position. The scope of the book is already ambitious but, I suspect. readers of this journal would have wished it to have been even broader and to have included more material on, say, land reform or diffuse industrialisation. This, however, would have made it 500 instead of 400 pages in length and would have pushed the outrageous price of f32.50 even higher. Despite this. the book can be warmly recommended to the researcher and the advanced undergraduate. interested in either the region or in rural studies. For once it is appropriate to quote and agree with the publishers’ blurb that: ‘This scholarly and authoritative collection is an essential reference in the analysis of the significant changes now taking place within southern Europe’. ALLAN WILLIAMS Exeter University, II. K.
The Changing Countryside and the Countryside Handhook, 1985, J. Blunden and N. Curry (eds), 2 ~01s. 269 pp. and 97 pp., Open University, Milton Keynes and Croom Helm, London, f11.95 and f5.95
Produced as texts for an Open University short course, these two volumes provide by themselves a detailed and rigorous introduction to rural change in Britain. Moreover they are as richly varied in form and appearance as are the rural landscapes whose passing they lament. A profusion of maps and diagrams, photographs - both ancient and modern and several in colour - cartoons and newspaper cuttings enliven a carefully written text.
The core of Volume 1 comprises four extended essays on key issues: expanding agricultural productivity, containing settlements, conserving the wild, sustaining rural communities. Each is treated in a time dimension, examining in turn the history of the issue, the current situation and the prospects of change. A feature of these chapters is the inclusion of extended quotations from various protagonists such as an NFU spokesman, a West Country farmer. a county council farm conservation adviser, a parish council clerk, an Oxfordshire planner and a Hertfordshire property consultant. These add real-world colour and confirm the essentially political nature of the key issues - as does the inclusion of ‘who benefits, who loses?’ sections at the end of each chapter. A penultimate chapter, on alternative futures, provides a dozen scenarios each by a different writer and each of 1000 words or so. In a few pages we read impassioned pleas for sustaining the countryside by persuasion, by imposing planning controls and by restructuring farm support policies. Others put forward their farming utopias, ranging from a low energy, high-labour model to one involving computer-managed efficiency with hardly any labour input at all. These personal visions are followed by a chapter reviewing policy instruments and how it is that change is to be managed. Perhaps not surprisingly, a revamped concern for ‘Integrated Rural Development’ emerges as a frontrunner. A companion volume provides a mass of complementary factual material, though it can stand as a work of reference in its own right. It comprises four sections dealing with: government legislation, official bodies, private groups, significant documents. The first, for example, summarises the essential elements of about 50 pieces of legislation from the Town Planning Act of 1909 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. The second takes us from the EEC’s Directorate General for Agriculture to the parish council. Each subsection sets out some background, an essential description and a paragraph of comment and advice on further reading. Concise and punchy, this volume is an invaluable aid for teacher, researcher and student. A superb synthesis of material from scores of the real achievement of these volumes is that the wherewithal for the reader to draw conclusions. And they do so in a thoroughly attractive way. In short, they show the Open its best.
contributors. they provide his/her own literate and University at
MALCOLM MOSELEY University of East Anglia, U.K.
Book Reviewers If you would like your name to he added to the hook review roster for Journalof Rural Studiesplease write to the Editor providing your name, address and a resume of your fields of interest.