Evolving approaches to rurality and development by the GRIDEQ between 1970 and 2000.
In Québec, as elsewhere, rurality is a difficult concept to define. Efforts to do so often prompt disillusioned conclusions, as if recent history were heralding the demise of the phenomenon. Based on studies carried out by Hugues Dionne, this article aims to heighten awareness of the relevance to this debate of work undertaken by the GRIDEQ research group, in what might be seen as a form of critical sociology. Research by Dionne and the GRIDEQ reflects an unmistakeable sea-change in the approaches adopted for many studies on the situation in rural Québec. It illustrates a shift in the 1990s from a focus on social movements and local living environments to a broader spatial perspective, where increasing emphasis is placed on local mobilization, seen now not simply as place, but instead as territory, in a relationship of conflictual cooperation with the State. Redefining the connections between local and territorial identity contributes to an expanded conceptualization of community which, when taken as reflecting “a desire to be part of the whole”, provides a degree of social and symbolic cohesiveness to the concept of what is “local”.