Critical reflections on the new rurality and the rural territorial development approaches in latin america

Abstract

This paper presents a critical approach to the New Rurality and the Rural Territorial Development (RTD) perspectives, which nowadays are hegemonic for governmental organizations and Latin American academies. RTD’s core requirements, which are functional for neoliberal policies resulting in the loss of food sovereignty, the globalization of agribusinesses, and migration as a consequence of peasant agricultural weakening, were critically reviewed on the basis of the principal challenges faced by Latin American rural areas. In light of the above consequences, it is thought that changes in such areas are based on neoliberal rurality rather than on the purported New Rurality. By stressing the need for a global historical view that reintroduces the Latin American critical thinking tradition, the urgency for public policies that stop neoliberal prescriptions and seek to strengthen peasant and indigenous agriculture in order to encourage rural development based on food sovereignty, democracy, equity and sustainability were established.