THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES

In recent times, the development of rural communities continues to hold a leading role in the main theoretical and practical reflection contexts. This is because reality, which changes more often than theory, keeps on demonstrating that the globalization processes put forward the need of a more dynamic interrelation between peasant societies and new social actors-many of urban origin-inhabiting rural spaces, thus showing a feeling of "returning to the countryside". This is thought of today at a global, national, regional and communal level, to such extend that the "local" concept has currently begun a conceptual redefinition.