Continuing International Policy Fellowship

Knowledge Transfer of Endogenous Rural Development Policies
- Impacts, institutions and evaluation

Activity report (a somewhat irregular one) 2004-11-25

 

The research was originally planned for 15 months. I wanted to devote the core of this time to do fieldwork and writing in Hungary. I only intended to spend some 3-4 months in Spain. There I expected to do the fieldwork mainly in English sometimes with a translator, when it was necessary. Nevertheless, the language-barrier turned out to be a major impediment. At the time of designing the research, I tried to get informed on the possibility of undertaking interviews in English, as well as about translation facilities. I was told that not speaking Spanish sufficiently could somewhat hinder the research, but it certainly would not make it impossible. I was also promised (by my tutor here) to get the ’services’ of a bilingual Spanish PhD student, who would have helped me to do the work when it was necessary. However, as I learned after my arrival, in Spain practically non of my anticipated interviews could speak English, and translation proved to be far too expensive and very inefficient anyway (the bilingual student never actually turned up). Therefore, I had a choice between abandoning the Spanish part of the research completely, or learning the local language and working without translation. My preference at the time was to get familiar with the Spanish context, since I thought, and still think, that to import and adapt western experiences on local development, governance, institutional building and the effective usage of EU aid is going to be a crucial factor for Hungarian rural areas in the very near future.

However, learning the language and establishing our life in Spain required a lot of time and energy, therefore the original research design had to suffer. Since I spent most of the last 15 months in Spain, I only had 2 months for the Hungarian field research (instead of 6). Also, though I have made all the necessary connections with important stakeholders; attended a number of important workshops and conferences and made interviews and some participant observation with various local development groups, I have to say, I am still far from finishing the empirical work in Spain. I still need several months to finish it and then some more time for processing the information properly and writing up the report. Considering the circumstances, I have received an appropriate extension from Pamela, for the submission of my final report. However, for those who are interested, here you are what I have been doing so far:

I. First trip to Spain

In 2003 July 2-10 I spent a bit more than a week in Valencia. This was for meeting my proposed tutor here, to make some additional contacts, to make some essential arrangements for my stay from September. Though this trip anticipated the official start of my research programme and was well before receiving any funding from OSI, I do consider it as the first trip in connection with the research.

II. First part of the fieldwork in Hungary

Between July and September 2003, I spent approximately one month with doing consecutive parts of the Hungarian fieldwork. I did interviews in Budapest at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development[1] (especially with staff members of the Rural Development Unit within the ministry); at the Rural Development Unit of the VÁTI (Urban Planning Institution) and with some experts of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of some other institution, which contributed to the design or the implementation of the Hungarian Pilot LEADER Programme[2].

I also spent approximately three weeks, doing fieldwork in two rural localities: in and around Türje (County Zala) with the Zal-akar Kistérségi Társulás[3] (Zal-akar Local Development Association); and in and around Győrújbarát (County Veszprém) with the Sokoró Helyi Vidékfejlesztési Munkacsoport[4] (Sokoró Local Development Action Group). I made interviews with the programme leaders, practitioners, beneficiaries of the programme, and with some people whom asked for funding, but did not receive it. I also intended to do some background research in the localities (talking to local mayors and other key actors); however, at the time there was not sufficient time to do all this.

III. Second trip to Spain

At the beginning of October, I went to Spain, with the original intention of staying only until the end of the year. I soon learned that my original intention of doing interviews in English, or with translation were not suitable to the research. Nevertheless, I spent almost a month with trying carry out the work I planned originally. I also had some problems about funding, not to mention the difficulties of living in an alien country, knowing very little of the local language or the local culture. (An advice for anyone, wanting to live in Spain: forget the hours of eating, shopping or going out. If you plan eating out, you cannot have lunch before two, or dinner before nine at night, however, it is more likely to eat something at 10 or 11. Also, forget to have the type of meetings that you are used to, and learn to take 1- 2 hours delay as normal. If you are prepared to accept such things smoothly, it will make your life a lot easier.) Meanwhile I did meet some really interesting people and started reading the (quite poor) English literature available for me on Spanish rural development. The scheme seemed to be even more interesting than I thought before. I realised that Spain is quite a lot more similar to what I know about Hungary, and I could learn a lot if I just could access the information laying beyond the language barrier.

Sometime in November, I decided that I could not keep the original schedule, and if I wanted to do or achieve anything useful in Spain, I had to learn Spanish properly. I had this experience with English before. I have never learned the beautiful language of Shakespeare in school; I rather went to England and worked a little bit. Three-four month of being amongst natives was enough to reach a certain level of fluency at the time. However, I did struggle a lot later when I returned to England to study to reach a decent level of writing and reading. I expected something similar in Spain; however, it turned out quite differently. It took me almost 8 months to start to be able something like a conversation, however, this time I went to language school and made a big effort. I was quite disappointed with my accomplishment, although I did have some pretty good excuses. First, Spanish is quite a difficult language, with a complicated grammar, 17 tenses (which they all actively use for a change from English) with different conjugation in all of them, billions of words and expressions, and so on. On the other hand I am more than ten years older now (compared to my English learning experience) meaning a considerably less fresh mind, and also, I was living here with my Hungarian wife rather than some talkative native blokes. Anyway, all this was not bad for me at the end, and one of the main benefits of the whole experience for me is being able to communicate on one more language, which is a great feeling, after all. I still have plenty of problems though… Therefore, most of my time, until May 2004 was devoted to learning the language and establishing other essential details for living and working in Spain.

Nevertheless, I did get involved in some important activities, especially helpful to make appropriate connections in the Spanish rural development arena.

Through my work at the Hungarian Rural Parliament I am a member of the PREPARE[5] Group (Pre-Accession Partnerships for Rural Europe), which, according to its mission statement is a “programme to strengthen civil society and to promote multi-national exchange in rural development”. Anyway, it is an umbrella organisation to help local governance and development in CEE countries, with the help of Western European experts and some American money. ELARD (European LEADER Network for Rural Development) another international organisation (currently under Spanish leadership) intended to build connections with CEE local actions groups and their networks, and to enhance this process and get some help invited PREPARE for a meeting to discuss future co-operation. Being in Spain at the time, I got invited to a small and quite informal meeting between the leaders of the two organisations in Madrid, on the 13/14 of February. Being the only CEE participant on the meeting and the only one amongst the invitees who could somewhat speak (rather understand in fact) Spanish, turned out to be very important and advantageous for my research. I made many really useful connections, and as a result, got invited for a range of subsequent workshops and meetings. I was in the fortunate situation of being able to offer something (connections, information, insights in CEE rural development) to those organisations and people whom I actually wanted to investigate. 

Another important contact I made was by accident. The university library has a European Information Centre, which I went to see short after I arrived. The centre was quite poor, with some dusty old leaflets and EU brochures, however, the person in charge (he did speak English a little bit, for luck) used to work for an organisation, called Centro Rural de Información Europea (CRIE) which I should not have to translate. Named institution, before and short after the date of the Eastern Enlargement (1^st of May, 2004) organised information days on the enlargement (día de la ampliación) in rural localities, throughout the Valencian Region and invited me to several of them to talk about Hungary, Central and Eastern Europe and on rural development in general. (These speeches I already gave in Spanish.) During these occasions, I made some very useful contacts in de rural hinterland of Valencia, and saw some interesting projects.

I was invited as a speaker to the following workshops:

1. Día de Ampliación en Caudiel, 28-04-2004

2. Día de Ampliación en Benasal, 10-05-2004

3. Día de Ampliación en Enguera, 16-06-2004

I also got involved in some ongoing projects of the Department of Geography at the University of Valencia. This was partly to make up for the funding I received from them, partly because their projects were interesting and matched my interest. The most important one was an international research project, funded by the EU Sixth Research Framework Programme, called Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge Based Society (CORASON, according to the Spanish abbreviation). This is a research on how common and special knowledge, social networks and information is/can be used in territorial development.

In early June then I was invited to a big European wide congress, the “Encuentro Europeo – de Cooperación en Desarrollo Rural, Cázeres 2-4 Junio” (European Congress of Co-operation in Rural Development[6]). The congress was organised by REDR[7] (Red Español de Desarrollo Rural – Spanish Rural Development Network). This conference was the consequence of the meeting between ELARD and PREPARE in February, mentioned above, and it aimed to build connections between local development groups in East and West. The organisers very generously offered to cover the costs all of the CEE participants (some 70 people), including their travel costs. I, in fact, contributed to the organisation of the conference, through the PREPARE network, and through my contacts in Hungary and some other CEE countries. I also gave an oral presentation and contributed to several workshops. Virtually all Spanish local development groups were represented at the conference; therefore, it was an excellent occasion for making contacts. I met here all those groups where I am currently doing the research. Interestingly, though they are dispersed, all over Spain, they all come from two sources: a conference dinner table and a bus excursion. Actually, these are usually the best occasions on a conference for making important and useful contacts. I can recommend it to everybody.

I did one more trip before going back to Hungary. It was to Mallorca, where I choose to have a LAG to investigate, the LEADER+ Mallorca[8]. I spent three days with the LAG, trying to do the first real interviews and observations of the project. I still had many difficulties with the language; however, everything started to come together.

IV. Hungary, July - September 2004

After a trip to Newcastle for my PhD viva (which I successfully defended on the 29^th of June), I returned to Hungary, to have some holidays and to catch up with the Hungarian part of the research.

In July, I made some interviews in Budapest, at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and tried to chase up all available documentation on the implementation of the Hungarian LEADER. Then, July 25 – 30, I participated at the “XI World Congress of Rural Sociology Trondheim, Norway Globalisation, Risks and Resistance[9]”. I gave an oral presentation at working group 2. (Transformations in rural governance: local agency in state-community engagement), the title was: “Integrated Rural Development, and the Reflexive Agency - theory and practice in a Hungarian pilot programme”.

Then, during the rest of my stay in Hungary, I returned to the same two local development groups, to investigate their evolution, and the implementation of the Hungarian Pilot LEADER. I talked to the programme leaders, and managers, to project representatives, small businesses, and so on. I also returned to some experts, and central organisers, interviewed the year before.

Third trip to Spain

I returned to Spain mid September and started working again. My Spanish was almost gone, I felt at least, but a couple of weeks were enough to recover. Between 29 September and 2 October I was invited again by REDR to the general assemble of Spanish rural development groups to Avilés (Asturias). The title of the meeting was: “Foro de Cooperación Trasnacional en Desarrollo Rural[10]”(Forum on Trans-national Co-operation in Rural Development). I contributed to several workshops, and met again many interesting rural development actors, such as local development workers, network leaders and some politicians, not only from Spain, but from Italy, France and Portugal as well.

After the congress I stayed almost two more weeks on the North of Spain, in Asturias and in Cantabria, visiting two local action groups, to do my interviews and observation, to establish a solid ground for the second, more detailed part of the participant observatory research. One of them was the LEADER+ Oriente de Asturias[11] and the other one the PRODER Asón-Agüera[12]. I spend 4-4 days at each location, trying to get to know the people and the area and prepare myself to ask meaningful questions when returning.

During the rest of my time here, until now (2004-11-30) I was doing more reading, had some interviews with some experts, did some writing (not enough, unfortunately), and have been trying to recover from a very nasty flu. Tomorrow I am going again for four days, to do a first visit, this time to Murcia, the region south of Valencia.

I will continue….

 

A list of attend conferences and workshops and my publications during the past year follows:

Annex 1.

List of participation in conferences

 

Conferences and Congresses:

 

1. I was invited to the “Encuentro Europeo – de Cooperación en Desarrollo Rural, Cázeres 2-4 Junio” (European Congress of Co-operation in Rural Development). The congress was organised by REDR (Red Español de Desarrollo Rural – Spanish Rural Development Network). I gave an oral presentation and contributed to several workshops.

 

2. I participated at the “XI World Congress of Rural Sociology Trondheim, Norway Globalisation,Risks and Resistance”. I gave an oral presentation at working group 2. (Transformations in rural governance: local agency in state-community engagement), the title was: “Integrated Rural Development, and the Reflexive Agency - theory and practice in a Hungarian pilot programme”.

 

3. Between 29 September and 2 October I was invited again by REDR (Red Español de Desarrollo Rural) to the general assemble of Spanish rural development groups to Avilés (Asturias). The title of the meeting was: “Foro de Cooperación Trasnacional en Desarrollo Rural”(Forum on Transnational Co-operation in Rural Development). I contributed to several workshops.

 

Workshops

 

Preceding the time of the Eastern Enlargement a Spanish organisation called CRIE (Centro de Documentación Europea) organised a number of workshops, to provide information to policy makers and development actors about Central and Eastern Europe and the possible implications of enlargement. I was invited as a speaker to the following workshops:

1. Día de Ampliación en Caudiel, 28-04-2004

2. Día de Ampliación en Benasal, 10-05-2004

3. Día de Ampliación en Enguera, 16-06-2004

 

Annex 2.

List of publications during the fellowship period

 

 

Nemes, G. (2004) Rural development and pre-accession preparation in Hungary Croatian International Relations Review, 10(34/35), pp. 31-41 (ISSN 1331-1182);

 

Nemes, G. (2005?) Integrated Rural Development, and the Reflexive Agency (manuscript for the proceedings of XI World Congress of Rural Sociology Trondheim, Norway Globalisation,Risks and Resistance, Transformations in rural governance: local agency in state-community engagement. The book is edited by Geoff Vaughan and Lynda Cheshire in Sociology School of Social ScienceThe University of Queensland
Brisbane