I return to a very sensitive topic for me, our interiority and, in particular, the network-territories of our interiority. The promises of the 1st rurality, plus the industrialism and urbanism of the 1st modernity, were left behind.
It is now a matter of preparing the territorial collective intelligence of the 2nd rurality towards a much more modest objective, a fine, capillary and delicate mesh of small enterprises that are very well articulated among themselves in rural areas.
I present below a series of examples that are a kind of interior architecture of a region. It is essential to give them a name and identification, to raise our attention and investigation for them, to increase their attractiveness and visibility in the public space, in short, to reveal their most distinctive territorial signs and from them to build new symbolic territories. Without them, and without the mesh and network that they constitute, there will be no genuine appreciation of the interior.
1) Building a local food system (SAL)
A municipality or a grouping of municipalities, a producers' club and a consumers' club, a local development association and an agricultural college, for example, propose to design a local food system (SAL), based on social and agricultural agriculture. peri-urban and, through short circuits, organize local trade in local food products; at the same time, the partnership takes the opportunity to requalify the system of green spaces and corridors, using, for example, social gardens, water lines and groves to articulate urban areas, rural areas and natural areas;
2) The construction of a protected designation of origin (PDO)
A natural park, the park's producers' club and the local environmental association, the set of villages that make up the park, the region's local development association and the nearest polytechnic school or university, propose to modernize the local production system of the park. park, creating, for this purpose, a specific agroecology, a protected designation of origin (PDO) or geographical indication of provenance (PGI) and a new strategy for visiting the park;
3) The construction or requalification of a niche market or segment
A tourist development, a protected landscape area, a town hall, a local development association and a polytechnic higher school, propose to requalify several tourist developments (1st generation villages), the wetlands and an adjacent beach and create a niche market, for example, a new quality public space for accessible, therapeutic and recreational tourism based on an agglomeration of therapeutic, creative and cultural activities created for this purpose;
4) The construction of an agro-tourist complex with a holiday and adventure camp
A group of riverside villages, on the edge of a lake or reservoir, a dam or hydrographic basin, the tourist operators based there, associations and/or clubs of agroforestry producers, water resources administrations, an agricultural college, propose to design and launch a creative and integrated agrotourism and rural tourism strategy that includes the participation of visitors in traditional agro-rural practices and the collaboration of volunteers from these holiday camps;
5) The construction of a tourism network of villages and a nature tour
A group of villages specialized in a particular sector or product, the wine-growing villages of the Alto Douro, for example, joins tourist developments, producer associations or clubs, a higher school and the most representative cultural associations, with a view to design a joint strategy for visiting and enhancing the material and immaterial heritage of this sub-region;
6) The construction of a collective brand for the relaunch of a range of products
A group of agricultural cooperatives or associations of farmers, a food distribution company or supermarket chain, an association of municipalities in the same area, an agricultural college or university, form an association with a view to designing a joint strategy for agrarian and commercial modernization. for a sub-region that has been the object of significant public investment and that urgently needs to be relaunched (the irrigation system in Cova da Beira, for example);
7) The construction of an agroforestry system or mosaic (AFS)
One or more Forest Intervention Zones (ZIF), associations or clubs of forestry producers, game reserves, protected landscape areas and special protection zones, agroforestry companies, a higher agricultural school, join together to form a agroforestry system or agro-silvo-pastoral mosaic with a view to creating an integrated intervention strategy that ranges from the prevention and recovery of burned areas to the construction of agro-silvo-pastoral systems with their complete basket of forest products;
8) Launch of a functional ecology and landscape architecture center
A research center in the area of biodiversity, functional ecology and ecosystem rehabilitation, a park or nature reserve, an agroforestry association, tourism companies in rural areas, companies in the area of thermalism, propose to create a research-action program having with a view to preserving biodiversity and local endemisms, improving the supply of relevant ecosystem services and enhancing the commercial value of these biodiverse assets through the launch of tourist, cultural and scientific services;
9) A mountain and mountain village development program
A grouping of local development associations, a university or polytechnic school, an agricultural vocational school, a park or nature reserve and a set of mountain villages, nature and village tourism operators, propose to design and launch a program of community development of mountain and mountain villages and a corresponding product basket;
10) The construction of a biological and environmental park
A business group in the area of spa and mineral waters, a protected landscape area, an environmental association or local development, a polytechnic higher school, the cooperative or local association of producers, the villages and towns in the project's area of influence, propose - create a kind of sanctuary, amenity or exemplary ecosystem that is a place for visiting good agroecological practices but, above all, for learning biophysical engineering techniques, landscape ecology and habitat rehabilitation, conservation economics, as well as architecture functional associated with bioconstruction and bioclimatization;
11) An Intermunicipal Agricultural Park with social inclusion goals
In the field of social action, an inter-municipal, associative or community project and based on volunteering that brings together, for example, Unions, Private Social Solidarity Institutions (IPSS), the Employment and Vocational Training Institute (IEFP), a school agrarian superior, with a view to social reintegration in the broad sense, professional training and the execution of institutional food contracts to supply schools, prisons, hospitals, barracks, homes;
12) A Pedagogical, Recreational and Therapeutic Farm
In the field of pedagogical, recreational and therapeutic action, an inter-municipal, associative and community project, aimed at the most vulnerable groups of the population with special needs, which brings together the IPSS, hospital services, the university, professional associations and research centers, with a view to the provision of medical, educational, recreational and therapeutic services, but also environmental services that are essential for the well-being and quality of life of the most sensitive groups of the population.
Final Notes
In all the cases mentioned, the purpose is always the same, the valorization of expectant resources, the formation of a value chain, an innovative collective action, an intelligent actor-network and an effective self-government community.
Furthermore, it is necessary to create favorable public space around the future network territories and their interconnection. A group of friends/promoting committee, the regional press, can create this public space and collaborate in the search for its most distinctive signs, as well as in the formation of an actor-network that is capable of listening, interpreting, promoting and realizing the aspirations of a territory that is desired.
In a time of digital transition, I add one last topic. It is about the connection between online communities and real communities as they result from the examples mentioned here and in particular the articulation between the metrics of digital networks and the logic of conventional administrative territories, especially the most remote and disadvantaged territories in the interior of the country.
Fixed and permanent public services and properly municipalized or multipurpose, itinerant and multi-municipal public services? What can digital society, online communities and algorithmic governance do for these remote and forgotten territories and for the real communities of the hidden country? Abandon, reoccupy, shred, privatize? We will have to come back to the subject more often.
Author António Covas is a Retired Full Professor at the University of Algarve
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