The recent interest aroused by Cultural Geography, which expressed a great attention and a study's excitement on "cultural facts", is linked to changes due to several factors in different territorial ambits where human groups’ identities are expressed. The globalization process produced different effects in various cultural regions, which lead to a homologation phenomenon, with consequent assimilation and lost of cultural identity, or to strong defensive reactions for their own specificities. In such a context, a particular attention towards "cultural signs" impressed on man by his environment, in order to protect every residual element that symbolizes the specific individuality which is again the historical connection between human beings and their past. So, the interest of UNESCO for World Heritage List properties, receivers of protection and preservation programs, has to be interpreted in this sense. A clear example of the above said comes from the attention turned to Aeolian Islands, recently declared "World Heritage Property", with the main purpose of volcanic identity safeguard, as fundamental landscape component, and of knowledge of Aeolian cultural properties, as expression of cultural identity and place belonging, of hereditary transmission and historical sedimentation, of representative contextuality and complexity.

Our first intention was to compare the names that actually have participated in the production of the ‘cultural turn’ in geography with the names which are actually available in Portuguese libraries and bibliographies. To do that we have made a very simple exercise that consisted in collecting ‘all the names’ which were present in the 4th edition of The Dictionary of Human Geography, and that were intimately correlated with cultural geography themes. The first blow was eminent: most part of them are not present in the various undergraduate courses available in Portugal, and neither in most of academic dissertations. Feeling rather alarmed with the extension of the list, we tried to make out some order of all these names by mapping them into a ‘conceptual landscape cartography’. The result is the one we can see on this map. This exercise would then consist of a sort of 'cross-section' in the conceptual landscape of cultural geography presenting ‘all the names’ arranged in conceptual spaces (the labels that structure the map) and by date: 1960s, green; 1970s, blue; 1980s, red; 1990s, orange. Being aware that this rhetorical device is subject to the same criticisms of its original exemplar, namely, that it is a freezing moment of a very complex process with differential temporalities which require a heterogeneous concept of time, that does not blur the different processes that are at work here.Vertical Themes With the aim of identifying some of the changing processes present in this ‘horizontal slice’ in time, we develop a 'vertical' arrangement of the politico-intellectual projects underlying this map. In no way it should be considered as a linear narrative nor subsume to genetic or progressive sequences. Even if the 'settlement continuity' metaphor may be appealing to us, the questions that lie behind the processes of appearance, disappearance and coexistence of research programs are of a complexity that can not be framed in simplistic notions of evolution or revolution. In science studies one may be tempted to use this simplistic notions guided by the maintenance of a certain grounded vocabulary, an entirely illusory device where the same words refer to quiet different things, as some quiet different words may refer to very similar things.

“Diversity is at the heart of geography - from the varieties in continents and climates to the interrelationships between natural resources and how people live...All of us yearn for a world in which our views, our cultures, our beliefs, our fundamental rights, are respected no matter who we are, how we look, or where we come from”. This is how Mary Robinson, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, addressed delegates at the 29th International Geographical Congress in Seoul, 14-18, 2000, upon receipt of the Earth and Humanity Medal 2000 by the International Geographical Union. A few weeks later, scholars from all over the world assembled in Rome to explore the potential role of universities in the quest for a “new humanism”. “Renaissance humanism”, one speaker recalled, “set up a new idea of truth as a dynamic statement, not previously defined or constructed, but something to be discovered and then applied... the joint venture of new scientific discovery with the humanistic approach to mankind's problems enabled the university to nourish innovation and offer a rigorous critique of institutions and social relations”( Bricall, 2000). It was such “airing” of university life, in his view, that was sadly lacking today. Does the “cultural turn”, evident in geography and in a variety of other fields, herald such fresh air? It has certainly sharpened understandings of human behaviour in space, time and place; it has unmasked the myriad ways in which values and meanings are socially constructed; it has undermined previous hegemonies of orthodoxy and method and evoked a more general awareness of reflexivity in disciplinary thought and practice. In many ways the cultural turn has uncovered forgotten aspects of geography, signalling a re-turn to some of the unresolved challenges of the past. Given the challenges facing the discipline at the opening of this Third Millenium, it might be useful to reflect generally on developments during the previous century, and to identify ways in which the cultural re/turn might equip us to confront these challenges.

What does the cultural approach offer to geography? In order to answer this question, we have carried out two types of analyses: 1- we examined the 90 communications presented duing the Conference of our Commission in Rio de Janeiro on 10-12 June 2003; 2- we compared recents books on cultural geography : those of Mike Crang (1998) for Britain, Giuliana Andreotti (1996-1997) and Adalberto Vallega (2003) for Italy, Boris Grésillon (2002) for France and Don Mitchell (2000) for the United States. The conceptions I have personally developed served as counterpoints in this analysis (Claval, 1995-2002).

In this paper I will attempt to illustrate briefly the importance of the cultural dimension in geography, and especially, as suggested by the convention programme, in those geographical studies theorised and applied by myself, as well as, I believe, by other colleagues and their younger assistants at the Economics Faculty of the University of Novara, as evidenced by their experience and by their research programmes currently under way. These experiences may be aggregated into two groupings, which in and of themselves express two methodologies, interconnected and inseparable, of approaching geography and its objectives. These would in fact highlight the importance of the following cultural values: 1) the geographic representation of our world, as produced historically, particularly with regard to regional development; 2) geographic planning, that is to say, voluntary or applied geography. In both the representation and the planning of the territory, culture in its multiple manifestations can be considered both as an object (or component of the territory), as in a true cultural geography, and as a factor (or determinant of the territory). It is on the latter aspect, that is to say on the explicative function of cultural variables, that I wish to treat especially in this brief statement; either because cultural studies have had in recent years increasing influence on other geographies, and particularly in economic geography, or because a socalled cultural “approach” seems to have become fashionable, such that this meeting of the UGI Commission has been entitled “the cultural turning-point in geography”.

Considering the demographic structure of the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean several complementary patterns can be easily defined. The states that extend along the south are, as noted, characterised by a substantial concentration of youthful populations, with over 30% of the population under fifteen years of age. In the north instead the societies are distinguishable for the ageing process under way, with over 18% of the population above 65 years of age. Equally, in Europe annual birth rates are close to the substitution rate, while along the African-Asian coast the rate reaches 3.9% in some areas, as for example in the Gaza Strip1. Containment of this demographic spurt constitutes a priority for the area’s various governments: Egypt, Iran and Turkey have begun programmes aimed at curbing births, supported by UN programmes2. Syria and Jordan have not expressly adopted such policies. But slowing growth is not always the goal of national population policies. Even in the highgrowth Middle East two governments actually encourage large families, those of Saudi Arabia and Israel3. As is known, one of the principal declared objectives of Zionism is to make the Jewish people into a nation like many others. The impossibility of transforming, for well-known reasons, emergency policies into a routine has increased the weight of the demographic question such that often the geographic dimension of the conflict is pushed into the background, especially in the recurring debates amongst the Israeli people. The Israeli interest in the future size, composition and age structure of the population has increased in recent years due to the large number of immigrants – arriving primarily from the former USSR. This interest stems from the need for economic and social policies adapted to the needs of a quickly-growing and fast-changing population. Projections present potential developments in the size, composition and structure of Israel’s population, based on developments in fertility, mortality and migration patterns. The state of Israel has been defined as a Western country that at the same time presents characteristics typical of a developing society4. One of these aspects is of course demography, which remains more similar to those countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, even excluding the birth rates of the Orthodox communities. The demographic question remains one of the more difficult aspects of defining a scenario of peaceful co-existence between Israel, a future Palestinian entity, and other Arab governments. A framework summarising the entire problem can be drawn up with just a few statistics.[...]

Apparently, development, Southern Italy and cultural geography are not related to one another. One could argue that tackling the issues of development and Italian Mezzogiorno, in the context of cultural geography is not a proper argument. Nevertheless, anything, someway or another, can be a cultural issue; precisely, the issues connected with development and Southern Italy are certainly a 'cultural fact', which can be approached in different ways depending on the culture and the ideology one advocates. Therefore, these issues can perfectly fit the context of cultural geography; but before getting to the heart of the argument I would like to quote a question I found about 40 years ago in a book by Jean Poncet (Poncet, 1968 and 1970): “Is underdevelopment due entirely or partly to natural factors?". Certainly there is a straightforward coincidence between the socalled Third World countries and tropical and sub-tropical climate areas: only in a few cases underdevelopment reaches countries in the temperate areas. As Poncet wondered, should we believe that "the value of geographic determinism, which has been long rejected – and rightly so – is the main cause for the explanation of human factors?". In other words, should we believe that the underdevelopment of given countries is caused by climate, soil poverty, shortage of water and other natural resources? In order not to give simple deterministic interpretations and determine if underdevelopment depends on natural factors, we should firstly explain why the countries that today live in total technological, economic and social backwardness are those which were identified in the past with the whole mankind. Evidently, with this new historical element the answer is more complex and it cannot be simply solved with deterministic interpretations. In remote ages, tropical regions could be considered far more advanced than temperate areas today. Rural and then urban civilizations appeared firstly in Middle East, India, China, Andean and Central America: exactly the ones that are ruled by underdevelopment today. Mediterranean countries, for example, have been the real 'cradle' of Western civilization: Rome and Athens speak for themselves. But after the age of great discoveries, North-West Europe's economic boost and spirit of enterprise totally cut those countries out. As Pierre George (George, 1968) wrote, "they became lands of archaisms, both in Europe (Spain, Italian Mezzogiorno, Southern Balkan Peninsula), on Western Asian coast, and in Maghreb". That is, when a mainly rural civilization has become industrial or industrialized, the 'needs' have changed and the countries that were not able to meet them rapidly and efficiently have gone to the forefront of economic and social development. So, underdevelopment is "defined and acknowledged by the inability of its victims to exploit the natural environment in a modern way and to live in the same environment in the same conditions as before" (Poncet). Southern Italy is a valid example of what has just been mentioned: the Magna Graecia whose people were not able to exploit the natural environment in a different way; now they cannot keep living in this environment as they did two thousand years ago, in a world that has discovered a whole series of different ways of life and a range of different needs, either real or fictitious ones.

To attain concrete and long lasting results, current development policies are essentially aimed at management of the milieu present in each local system. From this perspective, the cultural specificity, concretely expressed in the features of the landscape, is revealed as a fundamental component in orienting economic – productive selections, in perceiving the effects on the social system and the impact on the environment. Comprehension of the interconnection between natural and anthropic components, the overall significance given to single situations, the difficult relationship between the features of the landscape and their functions constitute only a few of the preliminary analyses required for drawing up projects in which there is participation on the part of the community and local forces and which are rooted in the territory. The cultural and environmental heritage which characterises each context becomes a powerful key to comprehension, a valid support to trace the complex of the historical events and of the various established cultures. The entire set of human, instrumental, cultural and natural resources available to a community constitutes an articulated and varied system of internality, whose use and development in an innovative dimension may favour proper insertion of each framework within a greater context. The complex of internality provides a concrete opportunity for development when associated with a network of externality, that is infrastructures and services, capable of integrating the situations, and linking them to connect them to external circuits in order to guarantee concrete utilisation by insiders and outsiders. Internality and externality, even in their roles as necessary components in the implementation of sustainable development, cannot be opportunely enhanced by synergic action of local parties without an adequately satisfactory level of environmental quality. The installation of industrial plants which are incompatible with the traditional agricultural vocation of specified contexts has produced a significant alteration of cultural and environmental values and of the overall landscape system. In terms of territorial management, the issue of the environment has assumed tremendous importance; and is no longer considered, as it was in the past, merely a background for human activities but instead is a central factor in the insertion of eco-compatible functions in keeping with local specificity, in order to promote true development. It is a determining factor in sustaining marketing operations aimed at conspicuous launching of endogenous potential and is the first step for the re-appropriation of essentials places and situations necessary to the perseverance of persistence of identifying links. With the progressive affirmation of principles of sustainability and territorial approaches, the environmental factor is destined to assume a determining role in transforming the functional aspects of various places, guaranteeing economic growth, social development and the quality of life. The local Campania systems can justly be considered territories of significant landscape, historical and cultural import to the extent that most of the rural and seaside centres would lose a great deal of their appeal were it not for their insertion within such a picturesque “natural context”. In reference to human settlements, built, in the interior on the Apennine hills, or spread along the coastline, bear witness to a well balanced relationship between man and nature, an appropriate use of resources, when building speculation and productive activities which are not compatible with the local context are not involved. This link between centres and territory, between nature and culture is found in the plans, which reflect political events and the various foreign rules which followed one another in Campania, and in forms of the buildings, which bear witness to functions and productive activities conducted by the local communities. The very division of the rural lands is a concrete reminder of complex legal and agrarian events (reclamation, landed estates, parcelling, centuriation, etc….). Landscapes thus structured constitute “complex cultural assets” because here, where human intervention has 248 not completely distorted the features and symbols of identity, cultural contributions, historical stratifications and environmental values are still visible. The area of Vesuvius constitutes a differentiated and complex reality from an morphological, historical and economic point of view, as well as owing to the role that cultural heritage has played and continues to play in the processes of territorialisation and development. An analysis of the “Vesuvian system” provides support for understanding the impact and alteration brought about by excessive demographic and productive concentration on the entire organic structure of natural and cultural components. Over the last years, close cooperation, with the perspective of governance, between enterprises, cultural associations, consortiums and local authorities was the starting point for a positive trend of inversion aimed at recovering cultural specificity and Vesuvian identity. -enhancement of internalities was, in fact, facilitated by the support and presence of a considerable and articulated network of infrastructure. To the contrary, owing to the attraction of stronger urban organisms and a lack of well structured “network of externalities”, many interior towns have not managed to succeed in transforming a territorially ingrained cultural heritage and a, as yet, uncompromised natural environment into factors of development. Close collaboration between the main “territorial forces” thus becomes an essential priority element for inserting currently marginal local realities into more ample and integrated circuits. Internality, externality and environmental quality are thus “fixed points” a dynamic and productive interpretation of a identifying heritage and landscape specificity.

When this paper will be published the new EU enlargement will have been accomplished. From May 1st 2004, ten Central and Eastern European and two Mediterranean countries will officially enter the Union. These countries are the three Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Slovakian Republic, Slovenia and the two Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus. These countries will be entitled to take part to the next Intergovernmental Conference that may adopt the new Union Treaty (an actual Constitution based on the European Convention); they will also participate to the European elections for the renewal of the European Parliament, which will be held right after the enlargement, in June 2004. The text of the closing statement of the Copenhagen European Council says that "this result proves European people's common determination to merge into a single Union that has become the driving force for the achievement of peace, democracy, stability and prosperity in our Continent". This powerful and crucial statement crosses out past tensions, latent conflicts, difficult dialogue between two areas of the same continent: the Western area, a market context dominated by the Atlantic influence, and the Eastern area, intent on experimenting with a form of society that was based on the concepts of real communism. At the geopolitical level, the transition from a form of co-operation that is focused on mainly mercantilist principles to a configuration that is driven mainly by the progressive accentuation of a tangible political integration represents an extraordinary opportunity for the new European Union to play a much more incisive role on the global scenario during the years to come. At the same time, in explicitly pragmatic terms, one cannot underestimate the fact that such a broad area has a primary influence on internal market transformations, on European labour market division, on the new opportunities that will arise from a growing international competitiveness. In order to understand the extent and the perspectives of the process triggered by the new enlargement, and to reflect over the challenge that the new Parliament and Commission will have to face, a brief account of geopolitical and geoeconomic evolution of the Union is appropriate. The original integration process was conceived in order to favour economic aspects mainly, although the contrasts between East and West during the 50s were so tense that the entire Eastern front was openly exposed to the danger of Soviet penetration, which threatened especially the UK and USA. An emphasis on internal European relationship in terms of regional economies in such a context may have seemed absurd without considering the actual awareness of an 'impossible' overcoming of that fence, the Berlin Wall, which would restrain any 'political' enlargement of continental Europe. After all, the post-war race for welfare urged to concentrate all efforts on the economic 'reconstruction' of Europe, focusing all Community partners' attention on some significant interventions both by ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community), and EURATOM; the former aimed at revaluating troubled industrial areas that were involved in conversion processes of steel activities, and the latter dealt with cooperation in the field of nuclear research for peaceful aims. Inevitably, with the Treaty of Rome, the first six European partners tackled the problem of supporting underdeveloped regional economies: the main goal was bringing Italian Mezzogiorno and Southwestern French territories closer to more dynamic and active regions such as Lorraine, Île de France, Dutch Randstad and north-western Italian industrial triangle (Compagna, 1973).[...]

Environmental deterioration can be defined as “the loss of capital- nature”. “Environment accounting” becomes the paradigm of the conservation and preservation of such capital by the same standards of an enterprise patrimony. Environmental goods valuation can be a prerequisite in order to control and contain the damages caused by man to the environment (Bishop and Woodward, 1995). From the cowboy economy attitude, according to which the natural environment had to be conquered and civilized in conformity with the idea of the open system and that of continuing economic growth (abundance of resources, expensive use of energy),we have passed to a different perception of the environmental problem, the spaceman economy. The Earth- Spaceship metaphorie the consideration of a circular economic system, has given prominence to the typical limited aspect of environmental resources. Environmental deterioration main artificer is the industrial and commercial “criminal development”, permitted by the incessant technical and scientific acceleration. Nevertheless the deterioration accomplice is often “the missing awareness and determination of the total economic value of resource and natural functions” (Barbier 1989). The environmental conceptual apparatus is that of the Economy of Wealth. In contrast with some of these theoretic presuppositions, a second discipline has been delineated: the ecological economy, whose epistemological principles are different (Stellin and Rosato, 1998). The ideological visions concerning environmental problems can be summarily assembled into two general categories: “technocentrism” and “ecocentrism”. The former category includes the positions considering, on different levels, the natural patrimony whose aim is the satisfaction of human needs; the category of ecocentrism enlarges the ethic reasoning and arrives at ascribing rights, moral interests to non-human species, even to environmental a biotic components. The environmental patrimony protection is by now a prerogative of developed countries. But its effective accomplishment is hampered by a conjunction of factors deriving from the difficulties in valuating the shocks undergone by the system; from the rapid and sufficient realization of their presence, so to prearrange appropriate countermeasures; from the achievement of a difficult balance between misuses containment and pollution from one side, and stimulation of the industrial production from the other. According to the contemporary economic perspective, environmental goods such as air, water, fauna are valuable goods, since the offer a flow of services to the individuals. In the service economic value the measuring process of services, supplied by natural resources , is a part of the benefit/cost approach. In conformity with this statement an enlarged point of view should be adopted, so to make the services real flow supplied to society and economy in natural resource readable: before all as an input source (fossil fuels, lumber, minerals, etc.), secondly as an indispensable element for human life (breathable air, livable climatic condition, etc.), then as a supplier of a series of reconstructive and landscape opportunities and finally as a system capable to receive and waste the surplus coming from the human activity. Consequently, the environmental economic value can be defined as the sum of flows discounted net values deriving from all the offered services: the benefits of an increasing support of any environmental service flow are given by the increase of the service discounted value. Likewise pollution damages correspond to the reduction in the service flow. The used value concept is founded on the economy of wealth: the individual wealth/utility dose not depend only on consumed - public or private- but even on the quantity and the quality of nonmarket goods and services supplied by natural/environmental resources system (e.g. health, recreative opportunities, landscape services, etc.). It follows that the reference for the economic value derivation measures of changements in the resources/environment system is the effect on human wealth. If society wishes exploiting the equipment of natural resources in the most efficient way, the values of goods/services flows coming from the resources use itself (i.e. the benefits)and 282 enjoyed by every member, should be compared to the values they renounce deterring environmental goods/services from other employments (i.e. the costs). Since the benefits and the costs are valuated according to their effect on the individual wealth, the “economic value” and “economic value” concepts correspond. The economic theory maintains that the individuals have proper preferences among goods/services alternative bundles - of market or not- and that preferences enjoy the replace ability property among such goods/services. Some observers are critical towards the attempt of expanding the economic measure process to elements such as health, human security, environmental features, landscape values and synthesizing its value in a monetary measure. Substantially the economic approach to the environment, whose quantification is presumed and its specify dispersed in the homogeneous measure of currency, has been under discussion.

In 2004 Europe will become a reality of 25 countries with the widest enlargement of its history, adding to its body 10 new countries: Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. It will be the realization of the dream, a radical change of our history, that will realize the premise for a global idea, definitive of those that will be the boarders of Europe and the European reality of the future. With the enlargement the European Union will achieve an increase of the 20% of its population to forehead of a 5-6% income increase. It will represent therefore an effort, a political action, an investment in the economic dimension never seen before in the history. These countries will add to our community 25% more technicians, researchers, applied scientists, giving so the possibility to prepare the new scientific Europe of the human knowledge that is essential to build our future. Europe will open the way to the overcoming of the problems that the overwhelming greatness of the United States and the impetuousness of China and Asia represent, not in the protectionism or in the closing of the boarders, but in the development of that great resource represented by its great human resource and by its culture. An intergovernmental conference of the member countries has been constituted and is operating for completing a negotiation intended to reach a new Treaty, that will finally constitute a constitution for Europe. The text of the treaty is in advanced elaboration and object of a heated debate. The agreement of the E.U. countries on the future European constitution will represent a political action of fundamental importance and historical value. We will finally have a constitutional paper that will institute and join Europe for a future political design that will allow the development of a participative and democratic life of the Union for a long period and will allow also to burden itself with the great problems of the globalization as well and to face them with unitary constructive spirit and a new political idea that is worthwhile to all the member-countries and favors their life and activities. The stages of the run of the only process of coming to the approval and the following acknowledgements of the aforesaid constitution in the 25 Europe countries, when not yet wider, appear today complex and of a not easily predictable duration, not only for the known historical-political precedents of the member countries, but for the correlated deficits of a harmonic generalized and generalizable European culture, whose achievement will lead to a real articulation of the times of such stages. Culture pervades every form of knowledge and human activity, therefore, I have prepared this paper proposing to myself to limit my reflections to the aspects to which I am currently prevalently devoting my study pledge (the welfare state in the E.U.).

Most people consider the territory as a substratum almost inert and inorganic, as a simple stage for communities and human activities. Actually a territory as a region, is a whole and an organic structure with human and physical elements; one acts on the other (Bissanti, 1978). The knowledge of availability of landscape resources (landscape as a combination between human and physical tracts that bestows to a territory typical features), affects, for example, the economic and social development of a community but the use of resources depends on that development. The different distribution of men and their activities on space have a precise functionality and a particular aim: to emphasise resources and territories. Tourism is one of those activities that use and waste the territory; it, always, needs new and incontaminated spaces. At the same time it reproduces processes of urbanisation and thus typical features of places become less evident. An often notable change derives from territorial potentialities, whose consequence is that "space is not only visited; but it is also organized (remodelled, restructured) and also consumed" (Lozato-Giotart, 1999, p.20). There are three big areas in which changes take place: - life style and welfare of host community (probably a loss of cultural heritage occurs); - functional, productive and assimilative power of ecological system; - nature, with a change of the ecosystem. Careful tourism planning imbued with the principles of sustainable development, should prevent or restrict the pollution of sites made fragile by an excessive tourist crowd. The sustainable development of tourism, instead, means to preserve the “diversity” in local culture and places. Moreover, change in use of soil, different migratory dynamics and economic, social, environmental impact caused by new tourism forms and outdoor recreation, have increased general interest towards rural tourism. Among the different kinds of rural tourism there is farm tourism whose importance is increasing in Italy. In 2001 farms involved in tourism have increased of 2% with regards to the previous year; number of rooms of 12%; arrivals have been almost three million, more than 18% of the previous year. Two territorial quality components are very important: the first one is the infrastructural and material component (environmental elements, natural resources, public and private structures, infrastructures); the second is the immaterial component, or capacity of men to emphasize present resources. The Italian experience demonstrates the importance of territorial quality for rural tourism success. To reach a greater performance of farm tourism (and generally of rural tourism), a strategy is necessary, based on valorisation of regional heritage as environmental, cultural, artistic, historical wealth and agricultural traditional products. In other words is necessary to emphasize the relationship between agriculture and tourism, considering it as a strategic factor in economic development of an area. The aim of this paper will be to analyse positive and negative effects of farm tourism activity on a part of Apulia and in particular in the Province of Bari. Research has these ends: - to verify if rural communities have been involved in tourism development process; - to verify if those communities have kept their traditions and values so as to be known by tourists. So it's be important to verify maintenance, for example, of: traditional architectural style, local language use, gastronomy, hand-manufactured goods, and to verify the maintenance of cultural identity and the inclusion or exclusion of rural communities in the economic development process or the diffusion of standardized life styles.