ABSTRACT
As mentioned in the introduction, the purpose of this book is to explore and discuss opportunities and challenges associated with globalising rural places. The selection of chapters provides rich conceptual and empirical material from across the world. It has become very obvious that the impact of globalisation differs very much as a consequence of the distinct contextual framework conditions in the rural places. The heterogeneity found in the cases studies makes it clear that the drivers of regional resilience can be very different. This conclusion attempts to synthesise the results of the chapters in this volume. Special attention is paid to endogenous development strategies which ideally are able to combine the local with the global. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of a stronger actor-specific perspective. The commitment of local and non-local stakeholders like individual businesses or administrators is crucial to develop a coherent place based development strategy. However, the derived lessons learnt should be taken cautiously. They only demonstrate which avenues can be taken by rural places. A ‘one size fits all solution’ is far from realistic. The rural places need to draw on their social, cultural, human, natural and economic resources.
