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The Contribution of Mobilities to the Social Sustainability of Rural Areas in a Context of Crisis: Structural Conditions, Social Diversity and Inequalities

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Crisis and Post-Crisis in Rural Territories

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Abstract

The Spanish rural population has remained stable in absolute terms since the 1990s. Different factors explain this relatively resilient behavior: residential moves, commuting, international migration flows, improvement of transport and communication infrastructures, private automobility, etc. The mobility of people, capital, and services is a transversal element to all these factors that draws new social landscapes. Therefore, this paper addresses the issue of mobility in the context of crisis and post-crisis, questioning the role of different structural conditions of the territory. The objective is to explore the role of such conditions in explaining residential and mobility strategies, many of them developed as a result of adaptative practices, linked to the recession effects. A comparative research has been carried out between a rural mountain area and a peri-urban one. The results show a great diversity of discourses regarding different perceptions of the crisis and distinct mobility strategies as a resource to achieve greater well-being. These reveal remarkable inequalities. Thus, even though territorial conditions constrain everyday life, age, gender and social position appear as key elements in relation to personal and social autonomy or vulnerability, which can even transcend those structural differences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The project (CSO2012-37540) was financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (National Plan of R&D) and directed by Jesús Oliva. The complete account of the interviews and the profiles is available in Oliva (2018).

  2. 2.

    The crisis has reinforced the trend towards the suppression of the rural services. In this context, local people presented the Municipal legislative Initiative that tries to define by law a minimum set of health care in rural area. An initiative that criticizes the consideration the rural area as uniform. In this sense specific measures were demanded for the mountain areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Advanced Social Research, Public University of Navarra (UPNA), Pamplona, Spain

    Elvira Sanz Tolosana

  2. Department of Sociology, Pablo de Olavide University (UPO), Sevilla, Spain

    Manuel Tomás González Fernández

Authors
  1. Elvira Sanz Tolosana
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  2. Manuel Tomás González Fernández
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Correspondence to Elvira Sanz Tolosana .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Relations, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Fatma Nil Döner

  2. Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Elisabete Figueiredo

  3. Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

    María Jesús Rivera

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Sanz Tolosana, E., González Fernández, M.T. (2020). The Contribution of Mobilities to the Social Sustainability of Rural Areas in a Context of Crisis: Structural Conditions, Social Diversity and Inequalities. In: Döner, F., Figueiredo, E., Rivera, M. (eds) Crisis and Post-Crisis in Rural Territories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50581-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50581-3_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-50580-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-50581-3

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