The Event
Iberian Conference on Rural Studies
13 to 15 October 2016
The Portuguese Society of Rural Studies (SPER), the Spanish Association of Agricultural Economics (AEEA), and the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD) through the Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies (CETRAD), in partnership with the Spanish Association of Geographers,(AGE), the Groups of Rural and Food Sociology from the Spanish Federation of Sociology (FES), the Rural Studies Network (RER , Brazil), the Spanish Society of Agrarian History (SEHA) and the Brazilian Society of Economics, Business and Rural Sociology ( SOBER ) will host here in Vila Real (Portugal) between the 13th and 15th of October 2016 the eleventh edition of the Iberian Conference on Rural Studies.
The Iberian Conference on Rural Studies has been carried out since 1988 through a partnership with AEEA and SPER. The CIER is a consolidated space of multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary discussion on the identification and analysis of the challenges and opportunities arising from the specificity and diversity of rural areas. It joins academics, researchers, experts and professionals from various disciplinary fields and promotes the interaction between theoretical and practical knowledge, contributing to the construction of transdisciplinary knowledge. The CIER is a global debating space, given the increasing participation of other "geographies", in particular with ones which have historical and cultural ties with the Iberian Peninsula, the Latin America and Portuguese speaking countries (PALOP).
The theme of the Conference ─ Smart and Inclusive Development in Rural Areas ─ aims to promote the discussion and the analysis of ideas, proposals and results of research and actual experiences already obtained on the applicability and implementation of the smart growth agenda and the sustainable and inclusive development in rural areas with different geographical and socio-cultural contexts, especially in Europe and Latin America.
Are there multiple issues raised by the Conference theme? What is smart growth? Is it convergent with sustainable and inclusive development? Does smart specialisation strategies offer a solution to promote development based on local knowledge and specificities? And if so, what type of rural areas? Does it pose risks for increasing marginalisation of peripheral rural areas? If so, how to prevent it? The XI CIER will be an opportunity to debate these questions by academics, researchers, students, politicians, technicians and other persons interested in the past, present and future of rural areas.
