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In this article, the authors analyse a complex social process affecting historic public paths in rural areas in southern Spain. Despite the fact that urban populations are demanding the enhancement of this type of natural heritage for tourism, sports and recreational use, some parts of the network have been abandoned or usurped.

The study is multidisciplinary, comprising three interlinked studies. The cartographic study comprises an inventory of public paths in rural areas based on administrative sources. The legal study analyses local, regional and national regulations governing agricultural, environmental, heritage, sports and tourism uses of the infrastructure. The sociological study analyses social discourses on the uses of public paths, and identifies conflicts between farmers, landowners, environmentalists, sportspeople and tourists.

The preliminary results identified an important public paths network in Andalusia, approximately 160,000 km. The legal study found that there are laws regulating use, although local authorities do not monitor compliance or provide solutions to enhance management. The sociological study determined the attribution of environmental, cultural and economic value to public paths, but also the existence of conflicts between rural and urban populations.

Given that this is ongoing research, only state of the art and some preliminary albeit sufficiently consistent results are presented.

The results could help to guide public policy and governance of public paths.

Public paths promote rural development and a green/sustainable economy.

The research results and conclusions are original.

The aim of this paper is to determine the scope and content for a holistic conservation and development strategies in the case of Gaziantep Rumkale. This approach seeks an answer to the question of “How can Rumkale archaeological heritage be preserved with their original values and passed on to future generations?”

The materials of the paper are based on field research and written and visual resource. The paper has been handled with a four-step method setup. The first stage is to examine the spatial and functional background of Rumkale and its immediate surroundings based on the historical development process. The second stage is to evaluate the upper- and lower-scale planning experiences of the heritage site. The third stage of the research methodology is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. The fourth stage is the creation of cultural heritage conservation-development strategies that define strategies for the protection and development of archaeological heritage in the context of sustainability.

The paper emphasizes the development of a holistic perspective that theoretically deals with the archaeological heritage sites of Rumkale together with the surrounding rural areas. In this context, the paper suggests ecological, spatial, socio-cultural, economic and institutional protection development strategies for the Rumkale archaeological site together with the surrounding rural areas for their delivery to future generations.

Although the area has an important cultural heritage value for different religions and cultures, it has not been subject to sufficient scientific research. The paper develops a holistic approach by considering Rumkale and its surroundings together.

This research aims at explaining the phenomenon of the “black children” (heihaizi), a very little-known generation who lived with concealment under the one-child policy in China. The one-child policy was officially introduced to nationwide at the end of 1979 by permitting per couple to have one child only, later modified to a second child allowed if the first was a girl in rural China in 1984. It was officially replaced by a nation-wide two-child policy and most existing research focused on the parents’ sufferings and policy changes. The term “black children” has been mainly used to describe their absence from their family hukou registration and education. However, this research aims at expanding the meaning of being “black” to explain the children who were concealed more than at the level of family formal registration, but also physical freedom and emotional bond. What we do not yet know are the details of their lived experiences from a day-to-day base: where did they live? How were they raised up? Who were involved? Who benefited from it and who did not? In this way, this research challenges the existing scholarship on the one-child policy and repositions the “black children” as primary victims, and reveals the family as a key figure in co-producing their diminished status with the support of state power. It is very important to understand these children’s loss of citizenship and human freedom from the inside of the family because they were concealed in so many ways away from public view and interventions. This research focuses on illustrating how their lack of access to continued, stabilized, and reciprocally recognized family interactions framed their very idea of self-worth and identity.

Limited research exists on the role of information access as a key success factor for rural entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of information access, among other inequality forms, in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes.

The authors used a qualitative, inductive research methodology. They conducted interviews with rural entrepreneurs and gained insights into the role of information access and basic tangible resources in shaping their ventures.

The authors identified two critical factors that impact rural entrepreneurs: inequalities in access to information and basic tangible resources. They found that inequalities in rural entrepreneurship are often interrelated, rather than isolated. The authors demonstrated that the relationship between entrepreneurship and inequality is not solely characterized by a positive or negative correlation but is a dynamic interplay where certain inequality forms may create barriers to opportunities for some individuals while creating opportunities for others.

The authors uncovered key barriers in rural entrepreneurship and constructed a roadmap to effectively address these challenges, providing valuable insights to policymakers and support initiatives and enabling the target of high-impact resources. This research supports efforts to provide rural entrepreneurs with equal opportunities to grow and succeed.

This research significantly contributes to the field by examining the complexities of entrepreneurship in emerging economies, with a particular focus on rural areas. The authors introduced a comprehensive conceptual model linking inequality and entrepreneurship, explored the challenges faced by rural entrepreneurs and offered strategic policy recommendations for development initiatives.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This beginning chapter offers a comprehensive overview of community development, tracing its historical roots and societal implications. It underscores community development’s role in fostering social cohesion and positive change. Beginning with its foundational principles of collective action, participation, and empowerment, the chapter delves into its evolution in response to industrialization and urbanization. It explores diverse scales, contexts, tools, and strategies used in community development and its broader societal impact. The chapter advocates for inclusivity and active engagement of community members, emphasizing tailored solutions that address unique challenges. It acknowledges complexities like ethical dilemmas, power imbalances, and cultural sensitivities, underscoring the importance of integrity and local context understanding in community development.

It is no news that Chinese construction companies are highly motivated to invest in Africa in terms of infrastructure and construction. This influx from the beginning of the millennium marked a game-changer for infrastructural development in most African countries. This study, therefore, explores how the partnership between China and Africa has impacted the construction industry in Africa with a focus on Nigeria.

A quantitative approach was adapted for the study, which is descriptive in nature, and the primary participants of the study were core construction professionals within the Nigerian construction industry. Data was collected via a structured questionnaire, and multivariate statistics was used to analyse the data.

The study results revealed that the benefits accrued from Chinese participation in the African construction industry can be classified into three distinct categories: socio-economic development through construction, land transportation system development and construction industry development. The study further revealed that Chinese involvement has been most beneficial to the development of the land transportation system in Nigeria with more investment in the construction and maintenance of roads and railways.

The study will serve as a basis for making informed future decisions on Chinese participation in the Nigerian construction industry as it exposes the impacts of the relationship within the current system. The outcome of this study can be used to refocus the partnership to ensure the optimum development of the local construction industry. The government and other relevant agencies can use the findings from this study to ensure that there is sustainable growth in the local construction industry through Chinese participation.

Municipalities seek new opportunities for co-producing services in rural areas. One potential partner is community-based social enterprises (CBSEs). However, whilst service co-production through CBSEs obscures the traditional roles of actors, it may lead to a legitimation crisis in local service provision. In this paper, the ways CBSEs are legitimised as service providers in rural areas are addressed from the CBSE and municipality perspectives.

Empirical data combine interviews with CBSE representatives and open-ended national survey responses from municipality decision-makers. The data analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis to examine legitimation arguments.

Results show that unestablished legitimacy and un-institutionalised support structures for co-production models build mistrust between CBSEs and municipalities, which prevents the parties from seeing the benefits of cooperation in service production.

The research focusses on the legitimation of CBSEs in service co-production in rural areas. As legitimation seems to be a context-specific process, future research is needed regarding other contexts.

Municipalities interested in the co-production of services might benefit from establishing a collaborative and responsive (rural) service policy forum that would institutionalise new models of co-production and enable better design and governance of service provision.

Results will give new theoretical and practical insights into the importance of legitimacy in the development of service co-production relationships.

Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.

Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.

We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.

In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.

We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.

Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.