Why social sciences and

rural development?

1
 How do social sciences contribute to rural
development
Awareness of differences
• Awareness of differences between rural and urban
areas and people (economic, social, cultural, environmental,
geographical and other differences are crucial for understanding
the reasons of rural development). Understanding the
differences makes the room for successful rural
development (the projects will “speak in the language” of
people who are concerned /stakeholders/ and not in a “language”
of others doing decision /shareholders/; the projects will target the
right issues).
• Comparison and documenting differences is
important for indicating the problems
2
 Game
• Make groups
• Write your images, associations of rural in one
column and rural in second column

3
 Game
• Ad
• Positive +: if the association has positive meaning
for you
• Negative -: if the association has negative meaning
for you
• Neutral 0: if the association has neutral meaning
for you or you cannot answer

4
 How do social sciences contributes to rural
development :
The increase of self-knowledge
• The better we understand social situation and are
aware of cultural differences, the better we know
ourselves. The better we know ourselves, the
lower possibility that somebody might manipulate
with us. Therefore we can use our knowledge and
skills for mastering development projects (we are
confident in ourselves and we master our
activities). For instance we know, social world is
constructed by us (social constructivism).
5
An example of social constructivism
How to define a rural region:
• Administrative and political definition
• Geographical and physical (natural) definition
• Demographic definition
• Economic definition
• Social and cultural definition
• Historical definition
• Infrastructure definition
• Environmental definition
• Social and geographic definition
• Other definitions 6
 Social constructivism
• Social constructivism emphasizes the fact
that the world is not given to a social actor
as an objective reality but the social world
(in which we are living in) is all the time
constructed in the process of social
interaction and communication

7
 Social constructivism
• Meanings in social objects cannot be only
revealed as they are existing in advance in
these objects. Moreover, the meanings are
only put on object by social actors. As the
meanings (which are ascribed to objects
by our interpretative and communicative
activities) change, it also changes the
nature of social reality.
8
Who are the Naciremas?
The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that
the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and
disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these
characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household
has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful
individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in
fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number
of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub
construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with
stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to
their shrine walls. The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is
built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical
potions without which no native believes he could live. These
preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The
most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be
rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not
provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the
ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret
language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by
the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm. The
daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite
the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this
rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting.
It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle
of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and
then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures
 Thomas theorem (social
constructivism)
• If a man defines situations as real, they are
real in all their consequences
• Think about BSE and behaviour of people
• Think about how do we construct regions
• Think how do we buy food products (what
is fair trade product – how do we know it)
• Food as social construction

10
 Green revolution as socially
constructed
The aim of the green revolution, the outcomes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9-HTtgFOk 11
 Gardening as
socially
constructed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=y8parEsBhLE 12