3.3 Rural Development and Sustainable Transformations

This chapter proposes an interdisciplinary understanding of the social aspects of the rural landscapes of Southern Transylvania, developed in seven years of place-based empirical and transdisciplinary research (until 2019) addressing human-nature relationships. Drawing on a large number of interviews and focus groups with residents, farmers and local NGOs, this research generated knowledge by assessing their perceptions and by considering them as both stakeholders and local experts. Although it is not delineated administratively, geographically, Southern Transylvania spans the cities of Braşov, Sibiu and Sighişoara (Fig. 3.4 ). The county of Sibiu, for example, (Fig. 3.4) had a rural population of approximately 141,000 inhabitants in 2011.