Making sense of territorial pathways to rural development: a proposal for a normative and analytical framework

It is impossible to look at something without conceptual lenses. This also holds true for the way in which one looks at rural development, in particular if one wants to reflect upon strategies to promote more beneficial alternative pathways. This paper therefore introduces a normative and an analytical framework for conceptualizing the development of rural territories. It was developed as a collective effort within the long-term institutional cooperation of the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB, University of Antwerp) and its Nicaraguan partner the Instituto Nitlapan-UCA (Universidad Centroamericana) as part of a VLIR-UOS sponsored project that aimed to support Nitlapan-UCA in its strategy to reposition itself as a university-based service delivery organization within broader rural territorial dynamics. The inspiration for the normative and analytical framework comes from a variety of theoretical sources. These are patched together in order to generate a conceptual lens that provides an actor-oriented, relational view on the criteria to judge development in rural territories which is subsequently connected to a more operational understanding of development as the dynamic emergent outcome of complex interactive processes between a multitude of actors in the institutional realms of ideas, rules and social networks.