Developing rural regions : Europe in the world

Abstract

This chapter examines how, in the twentieth century, European observers thought about rural regions that, in their view, needed to be “developed,” and how they translated their ideas into practices in the form of improvement and modernization schemes. The chapter pays specific attention to how perceptions of rural “backwardness” on the European continent and in the European colonies were connected and influenced each other. It focuses on those individuals who carried out the studies on which notions of rural backwardness and rural development rested and who were in charge of planning developmental interventions: social scientists, colonial and postcolonial administrators, and development experts and practitioners.