436 Localized Food Systems
in ways which re-engage with the somewhat traditional sociological concepts of com-
munity, regulation, consumption, exclusion, justice, bureaucratization, professionalization
and expertise, associationalism and responsibility. By doing this we can begin also to
integrate some of the overdrawn dichotomies and debates between political economy
and actor strategies and networks, social constructivism and realism, globalization
and localism, economistically determined productionism and culturally confined
consumptionism. It is argued that we need more engaging conceptual and theoreti-
cal formulations which help and guide us to not only make sense of the ‘new rurali-
ties’ which confront us, but also to allow more reconstructivist as well as critical
interpretive roles in both rural and environmental social sciences.
Exploring and taking forward ecological modernization debates may, there-
fore, be one way of meeting this growing need within rural sociology for improved
theoretical engagement. As Frouws and Mol (1999, p286) conclude in their analy-
sis of the ecological modernization of Dutch agriculture:
Environmental sociology seems, in this respect, indeed capable of being a ‘formative
power’ in the development of rural sociology. Its contribution is especially valuable to
clarify the all-embracing impact of the environmental question on the technological and
institutional reconstruction of agriculture, and to address its social, political and eco-
nomic implications... This brief exploration also revealed, between the lines, the socio-
political contestability and indeterminate outcome of ecological modernization as a
political programme for agricultural change in the Netherlands.Here, the paper outlines six key conceptual areas that are in need of development,
which, it can be argued, give some pathways forward on which to continue to
build such ‘formative power’. These are explored here with reference to recent
empirical research undertaken in the food, farming and forestry sectors on a vari-
ety of rural development projects.
Key Conceptual Starting Points: Empowering Social
Ecologies
Environmental and territorial justice
A key feature of current patterns of rural development concern what seems to be
greater amounts of economic and geographical uneven development. This is partly
exacerbated by the gradual neoliberal shift, on the part of many nationstates, away
from explicitly fostering more convergent, balanced, regional economic develop-
ment. A key feature of extant rural and environmental arenas comes then in needing
to address aspects of both territorial and environmental justice. The adoption of
sustainable development goals cannot really be progressed unless they begin to deal
with spatial uneven development, and particularly how local and regional conditions