Shaping Rural Areas in Europe : Perceptions and Outcomes on the Present and the Future

Luís Silva, anthropologist, is Post-Doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Research in Anthropology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CRIA/FCSHUNL), Lisbon, Portugal [luis.silva98@gmail.com]. His principal research interests include rural dynamics and the anthropology of tourism, focusing specifically on the making of heritage and tourism products in rural areas, as well as on the local impact of tourism and the heritage enterprise. He has published the book Casas no Campo. Etnografia do Turismo Rural em Portugal (Houses in the Countryside. Ethnography of Rural Tourism in Portugal) (Lisboa, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2009), and various papers in journals and books, including Beneath the Surface of the Heritage Enterprise. Governmentality and Cultural Representation of Rural Architecture in Portugal (Ethnologia Europaea 41 (2):39-53).

Elisabete Figueiredo is a sociologist, PhD in Environmental Sciences. She is an assistant professor at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences – University of Aveiro (UAVR) and Full Researcher at GOVCOPP – Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies [elisa@ua.pt]. Her principal research interests are rural sociology and rural studies, especially contrasting social representations and imaginaries on rural areas and on rurality; rural development policies and strategies; rural reconfiguration and restructuring processes; rural tourism impacts. She is also interested in environmental sociology and risk studies. She is author and co-author of more than 100 papers, in international and national books and journals. She is the general coordination of the book Rural Plural – Olhar o presente, imaginar o future [Plural Rural – looking at the present, imagining the future] (2011, 100Luz).