The mediated rural and the storytelling for change

This text provides a reflection on the intersections between socio-cultural imaginaries, economic development and ruralities. The author proposes that we are experiencing a mediatization of rural that circulates discourses that replicate an extractivist interpretative frame. This is a logic in which the rural is understood as a space that produces and provides food, energy, fun or relaxation. It is a narrative that lacks reproductive and regenerative dynamics. The author proposes developing a new form of storytelling in and within rural areas, one detached from this interpretive framework. Culture and media, including journalism, are places for innovation in this sense. One possibility is to integrate the values of critical posthumanism into the imaginary of a “resituated rural”. For this, there is a need for media coverage that investigates the relationship between human and other-than-human agencies: animals, plants, materialities. Culture and critical thought play a role in making visible projects grounded in integrative epistemologies. Beyond the stories of the collapse, the text proposes that this narrative must be affirmative and must seek alliances to build a resilient rural in the face of the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity and precariousness. It is not just a change of storytelling, but a storytelling for change.