By Williams, J.M., Chu, V.H.Y., Lam. W.F., and Law, W.W.Y.
The Centre for Civil Society and Governance, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Worldwide, rural areas are experiencing significant changes due to urbanisation and globalisation. Many rural areas have experienced, often drastic, decline of populations and farmlands, the abandonment of rural housing and the degradation of public infrastructure and other services (Walser & Anderlik, 2004; Bjorna & Aarsaether, 2009; Stead, 2011; McGreevy, 2012; Li et al., 2014; Williams et al., 2021). It is only more recently that the importance of revitalising rural areas due to their role in underpinning the development of sustainability models and ability to support societal health and wellbeing has been recognised (Williams et al. 2021).
Concurrent to the widespread decline of rural areas, rural spaces are becoming increasingly connected with urban areas due to the increasingly interconnected and globalised contemporary world. The result is peri-urban space, which benefits from improved public infrastructure and access to a larger pool of skilled workers. Meanwhile, however, the area’s natural resources and traditional livelihoods maybe eroded alongside its traditional governance systems, leaving rural resources vulnerable to pressures from urban processes (Singh & Narain 2019).
Revitalisation in this context is posited as a way to reverse rural decline through focusing on the creation and stimulation of opportunities to generate local rural incomes and jobs, while preserving and sustaining the dynamics and features that characterise rural life (Kenyon, 2008; Meyer, 2014). This involves the maintenance, revival or transformation of traditional institutions that manage shared resource through improved management (Steiner & Fan 2019). Consequently, these areas can be transformed into productive and sustainable localities, with communities able to collaboratively engage to leverage their position at the peri-urban interface.
To achieve sustainability in the peri-urban context, the challenges embedded within interactions between shifting social and economic processes and local contexts requires collaborative forms of governance. In many cases, and as exemplified in our case study of the Lai Chi Wo (LCW) village in Hong Kong SAR, misconceptions regarding what revitalisation entails can impede progress. Institutions, such as scientific, knowledge and educational institutions, have been identified as having the potential to act as a broker to safeguard and protect community interests, particularly in situations of power asymmetries (Foster & Iaione 2022). In the LCW case, misconceptions were able to be addressed and dissolved through the actions of such a broker in the facilitation of collaborative governance and movement towards community self-governance.
Here, previous government policies relating to village zoning and country park boundaries failed to support the long-term development of rural villages. The Small House Policy (1972), which is an open-ended policy that upholds the right of male Indigenous villages to build a house on land within their village at a concessionary premium once they reach 18 years old. The increasing number of applicants and lack of planning permission, resulting in haphazard development and sprawl, have been the subject of increasing concerns (Hopkinson & Lei 2003). The Country Parks Ordinance (1995) excludes village and agricultural land from country park boundaries, creating unprotected enclaves. These are at risk from private development and the consequential loss of ecology and biodiversity (WWF 2014). The LCW village is one such enclave, and so was the subject of arguments from green groups and conservationists wanting greater (environmental) zoning protection and villagers upholding their traditional rights. In sum, nature conservation and human activities were perceived as conflicting agendas, making collaborative governance arrangements a challenge.
Consequently, for years the lack of consensus stymied attempts to restore or rejuvenate LCW. LCW is a traditional Hakka village, with a 400yr long history, and once generated enough produce to sustain its few hundred villagers (Chick 2017). The village upheld principles of sustainable and wise-use of natural resources for self-sufficiency and so possessed a close interdependent relationship with the environment. This equilibrium broke down over the 1960s-70s, alongside the decline in the agricultural sector. Its villagers emigrated overseas or to urban areas, leaving agricultural lands overgrown and buildings crumbling. Notably, the social capital and cultural commons inherent to the village were at risk of being lost altogether.
In 2013, Sustainable Lai Chi Wo Programmes[1] (the programme) was launched. The programme, led by The Centre for Civil Society and Governance at The University of Hong Kong (the programme team), provided an innovative model to break the development/conservation impasse and initiate community led collaborative governance. In addition to replenishing social, cultural and ecological capital of the rural areas, the programme team took on the role of a broker, providing mediation and facilitated learning across the disparate groups (Jenkins-Smith & Sabatier 1994, Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014). Arenas were co-created by the programme team and relevant stakeholders to foster trust-building, knowledge generation, collaborative learning and conflicts resolution (Hahn et al., 2006). In particular, the programme team employed strategies of venue creation, issue (re)framing and knowledge co-production to build trust, align goals, mediate conflicts and balance power relations. This allowed collaborations to form and progress, resulting in the community-led revitalisation of LCW (Chu et al. 2022).
During the programmes development, a period of scope (re-) definition was required to capture the differing objectives of the villages, green groups and government. This was essential for establishing the basis of collaborations. Through an iterative process of stakeholder meetings and engagement processes, issue re-framing was able to occur. The programme reframed the differing visions so that they could all fall under the one co-created, comprehensive vision, with many participants reporting that such reframing positively changed their perception of sustainable living and rural community. One villager stated that the “Programme has helped me appreciate the interdependence between human beings and the natural environment” (2017:29 in Chu et al. 2022). Through oral history interviews and curation of art programmes that celebrate rural capital, the reframing emphasised the relationships between land and people embedded in the village. As an example, statements expressed the desire to ‘revive the relationship between the land and the people’ by enhancing the pride and sense of belonging of the villagers, to maintain a ‘self-sustaining economy’ (Chang 2016).
The programme also built trust and joint understandings through creating and managing new venues in the form of new festive events, capacity building sessions and liaison meetings, alongside informal daily communications. These venues provided neutral grounds for discussion between experts and those active on-the-ground, which contributes to knowledge exchange and learning (Hysing & Olsson 2008). By allowing stakeholders to engage in constructive dialogue regarding the programme, the wider community become involved, providing them a voice in the programmes development.
Progress was also made in building a more integrated, self-sustaining village community through working to dissipate the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ beliefs commonly held by Indigenous villagers and those in urban areas. Through constructive dialogue and co-developing social innovative solutions to rural issues, a neutral venue was created for the co-creation of a broader community of interest involved in rural revitalisation. Alongside this shift, the villagers’ perception about the direction of development changed. The previous imagination of an urbanisation-style development was supplanted by support for a collaborative approach to sustainable community development. This was significant as previously some villagers believed developer-led development was the only alternative to desertion (Chu et al. 2022).
As a result of the broker, the LCW programme took a community-led and collaborative governance approach to revitalisation. The result was the revival of agricultural land, a vibrant village and policy change that now embraces such projects, with the introduction of a new fund and organisation dedicated to rural revitalisation projects (Williams et al. 2020). The broker was able to facilitate collaborations through its various strategies, resulting in the creation of new community co-governing the sustainable management of the village’s resources in a manner compatible with the modern world.
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[1] Sustainable Lai Chi Wo: Living Water & Community Revitalization- An Agricultural-led Action, Engagement and Incubation Programme at Lai Chi Wo was initiated in 2013, followed by the HSBC Rural Sustainability programme in 2017.
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