Rural areas as resilience spaces in new regional development paradigms: A research in case of rural areas of Beysehir in Konya

This study aims to evaluate on the concept of resilience to rural areas in the new regional development paradigms. Rural resilience supported by evolutionary economic geography is considered to the methods developed against the negativity and practices coming from past of rural areas. In this framework, the main objective of this study is to explore the new meaning that has been put into rural areas with the change of paradigm. Also, it is aimed to evaluate on the examples of how development dynamics predominate in the favour of cities can be corresponded to rural areas as the new actor of regional development. The main problematic of the study was drawn on rural resilience. It has been examined the process of development of rural areas and rural policies in developed and developing countries. The factors affecting the resilience in the rural areas is determined in case of the study area according to economic, ecological and cultural context and it has been re-discussed the role of rural areas in the settlement systems. Especially in recent years, rural areas, the issue such as food security, alternative tourism, counter-urbanization, have been transformed into places that vary in terms of economic activities and demographic characteristics. Thus, research and evaluations on the ability of the rural considered as alternative areas for local and regional development strategies have been examined important places in terms of planning. It is the contribution of the thesis to the literature how to create a value chain on rural settlements by the issues, variables and dynamics in the context of rural resilience and be a guide for further studies. Because, it is important to determine the ability of the rural area to endure the change before reorganizing around a new structure and process cluster, while rural resilience is defined as the capacity of a rural area to adapt to external conditions depending on changing living standards.