FG Sozialwissenschaftliche Umweltfragen
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"Rurality" or ”rural life” has not mattered much as a concept in public and political as well as scientific discourses during the 1990s. In recent years, it has experienced a remarkable resurgence. This paper tries to investigate this phenomenon. Therefore, major trajectories of rural change in East Germany since 1989 are briefly described, and rural discourses in selected policy arenas are explored. It is argued that the notion of rurality is differentiated across different discourse arenas. While the notions of rurality are not independent from each other, they do not form a coherent worldview. This fragmentation of rural discourses reflects the increasingly hybrid reconstitution of the global countryside. Paradoxically, the notions of rurality do not reflect this hybridity, but they mostly seem to remain in traditional ways of thinking and largely draw on widespread rural images of village, peasantry, cooperation and natural beauty.
The article develops an analytical framework to explain the successes and failures of local community energy projects in the countryside. Theoretical elements based on ownership, technology acceptance, value chains and public opinions are developed and synthesised in two concepts: ´technical complexity` and its antagonist `social complexity`. The achievement of a mature community energy regime is explained as a continuous process of consecutive single steps in both social and technical arenas.