*Quebec; Sense of Community

Nearly half of Quebec's municipalities have fewer than 800 inhabitants and are struggling with conditions of economic decline, outmigration of youth, and political marginalization. In 1991, a regional coalition called Coalition Urgence Rurale was formed in the Lower Saint Lawrence area to support initiatives that promote community empowerment, maintain community services (including schools), and enhance rural identity. The movement aims to develop a social agenda based on a contemporary redefinition of rurality. The rapid collapse of rural social and cultural structures and their replacement with a national technocratic system of production and consumption has meant that villagers are losing mastery and knowledge of the tools they need for local development. Individuals are becoming functionally illiterate in the sense of losing all social and cultural guideposts to the system in which they live. Loca