In this workshop, we want to address this side of rural politics and comparatively analyze the dynamics of rural representation in African and European countries. We understand representation in both senses of the term. On one side, we take a look at the formal and institutional side of interest politics: which organizations dominate in interest politics? What relations to farmers’ and peasants’ associations have with political parties, parliaments and governments? How many farmers do they represent, and what are the agrarian and rural development policy goals they strive for? On the other side, we investigate the dominant countryside and rural life imaginaries that are produced in the everyday politics of representation. Which competing visions of agriculture, rural community and human-nature relations exist and are used in political discourse? What potential of romanticization exists in the respective debates? Finally, which rural groups are represented in these diverse imaginaries, and which are not?

Programme with schedule (Download)