Resumen

AVILA SANCHEZ, Héctor. Recent trends in rural Geography studies. Theoretical developments and research areas in Latin America. Invest. Geog [online]. 2015, n.88, pp.75-90. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.44603.

In this paper it is made a tour through the various theoretical and methodological routes that support the Rural Geography, in its current forms. The article is part of a wider investigation into the trends and state of the art of rurality between the years 1990 and 2010, with emphasis on rural geography perspective and particularly on the contributions that establish French geography and Anglo- Saxon geography. It highlights how these influences have transcended national geographical schools in some countries of Latin America. At the beginning of the discipline in the early twentieth century, emphasizing the identification and description of landscapes, influenced by the importance of regionalist discourse. Subsequently, rural geographical studies developed under the influence of economic geography, mainly describing large areas of agricultural specialization worldwide (cereal production areas, or Mediterranean agriculture, etc.). Later, from the decade of the eighties, analyze the depth of the territorial changes that occur in rural areas, due to changes in the Fordist and post-Fordist production paradigm, and the arrangements resulting from globalization. Highlight Post-productivist trends, evident since the late eighties and during the nineties, represented by the functional diversification of rural areas. In these, have changed the traditional roles of rural spaces, in terms of food production and land use, with the growing presence of non-agricultural functions, such as residential, industrial, commercial, transport and recreation, gradually displacing agricultural activities, changing the face of traditional agricultural areas. Characterization and function of the field, start to differentiate. Cities grow, expand and modify their links with adjacent rural areas; in rural areas more and more housing developments. In the great world metropolis urbanization advances significantly in the occupation of rural areas, although in some countries, such progress is conducted under certain rules of land use, while others are made of chaotic way. However in both cases, are becoming more confusing the boundaries between city and countryside. The conditions of agricultural and livestock production have changed; the social composition of rural households has become the product of intense national and international migration as well as proliferation of new non-agricultural activities. Electronic communications and computing have entered the field, at different levels and this too has changed. The rural geography as a branch in the study of humanized spaces, analyzes the different ways in which they are spatially embodied such transformations. Precisely rural geography has been commissioned to give a space character to the territorial, economic and social changes that occur in the field, with an even greater than other disciplines such as rural sociology, anthropology or agricultural economics emphasis. Now from the decade of the eighties, rural geography gives particular attention to the residential function and social changes that are prevalent in peri-urban , favoring approaches to the employment and several third sector activities (services and leisure) who develope the new inhabitants. It is recognized that peri-urbanization has crossed the characterizations and typologies actually recognized. From disciplines such as rural sociology and social anthropology is discussed about the location of people in a given area: are they urban or rural? Different positions are presented and there is a need to review the relevance of the dichotomy and the hybrid character, intermediate between town and country. Finally, emphasizing the identification of territory as a conceptual category to study their processes and forms of apprehension, as well as the concepts and current ideas in construction and territorial management. Highlights some prevailing trends and lines of research in some countries of Latin America, where currently rurality is analyzed not only from the geographical discourse, but through various social disciplines devoted to the study of the territories. In this context, although the Rural Geography has contributed concepts and tools that enhance the perception of territorial expressions of economic and social processes relies increasingly greater extent, to linking with other social disciplines. It fulfills with its tasks of spatial analysis as a discipline.

Palabras llave : Rural Geography; rurality; territory; agriculture; peri-urbanization; urbanization; trans-discipline; Latin America.

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