Rural Europe and the World: Globalization and rural development (Editorial)

Globalization has a pervasive influence across rural Europe. From the forests of Scandinavia to the orange groves of the Mediterranean, from remote Irish farmsteads to German commuter villages, the economic, social, cultural and political lives of rural localities are being continually refashioned by globalization processes that stretch, intensity, multiply and create new relations, ties and dependencies between places scattered around the world (Steger, 2003). As the European Commission (2007) has observed, “globalization is seen to touch every walk of life – opening doors, creating opportunities, raising apprehensions”, such that the impact of globalization is multi-faceted and differentiated, and responses to globalization are diverse.