Can technology enhance access to healthcare services in rural areas?
This article explores how three generations of families dedicated to peasantry and the primary sector in Central Catalonia live, work, and relate to the land. Using qualitative methods such as life stories and in-depth interviews, and ensuring confidentiality due to the small size of these municipalities, we trace continuity and transformations in labour practices, and relations with cattle, clients, suppliers, and institutions. The trajectories reveal three key milestones. First, increasing technification and mass production aimed at standardizing processes and lowering margins. Second, a shift back towards a new form of localized production (last mile) based on direct trust and product quality, despite regulatory challenges. Third, diversification into the service sector, providing “authentic experiences” and supplementary activities to support the family economy. The generational perspective helps us understand how trades and lifestyles are inherited, how technification policies, regulations, and processes are shaped and work is redefined, and the uncertainties that arise when the continuity of family farms is uncertain. The paper concludes that the challenge of sustaining livelihoods solely through land work leads to hybrid strategies combining production, proximity, and services – within a context marked by strict regulations and market pressures that tend to concentrate food production in the hands of a few very large companies.
SDG
Eduard J. Álvarez-PalauHolder of a doctorate in Engineering and Transport Infrastructures (UPC), as well as qualifications as a Roads, Channels and Ports Engineer (UPC) and a master of Organization Management (UOC). He is an Associate Professor at the UOC’s Economics and Business Studies, the academic director of the university’s master programme in Logistics Management, and the principal investigator of the URBANLOG group. Previously, he served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of the European Commission (DG MOVE), an associate professor at the UPC, and an external consultant for the UOC. He also possesses international experience in leading civil engineering projects, urban planning, and transportation management within the private sector.
Cristian CastilloDoctor of Business Administration and Management, holds a master degree in Industrial Organization Engineering and is a technical engineer in Industrial Electronics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). He is currently an adjunct professor in Economics and Business Studies at the UOC and the director of the degree in Business Administration and Management. He was also an associate professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia for one year. Before his teaching career, he gained twelve years of experience in the private sector, where he held various logistics management positions. He belongs to the URBANLOG research group, and his research interests focus on logistics and production operations of companies, as well as the organization of companies, specifically in terms of organizational change.
Oriol Yuguero TorresDoctor of Medicine from the University of Lérida, he holds a master degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and in Bioethics from the University of Barcelona. He is a family doctor and has always practised in emergency departments. Since 2023, he has been the head of the Emergency Department at Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital in Lérida. He is also a Professor of Bioethics at the University of Lérida and a researcher at IRBLLEIDA. From 2023, he has additionally served as coordinator of the UOC’s e-RLab research group. In this group, he leads projects on artificial intelligence, social urgency, and the well-being of healthcare professionals. His work combines assistance, teaching, and research, and his career is characterized by driving innovation in organizations and clinics, giving voice to patients and professionals, and promoting the quality of care and humanization of medicine.
