Embracing marginality: place-making vs development in Gardenton, Manitoba

Based on a two-year, multi-method study of 'development' in one small community in rural Manitoba, Canada, the article examines how the community and people's reasons for living there have both changed and remained consistent since the beginning of the area's settlement by Ukrainian immigrants in the late nineteenth century. The community has much in common with marginalised areas of the global South, in terms of its treatment at the hands of those in the centre and those who promote 'development'. The author argues that the concept of 'place-making' allows for both a greater understanding of the dynamics in the community and greater possibilities for building sustainable, liveable places, than does the concept or practice of 'development'.