Território e abordagem territorial: das referências cognitivas aos aportes aplicados à análise dos processos sociais rurais

Recent discussions on rural development have searched new approaches, particularly in order to analyze issues related to social and environmental sustainability as well to actors’ participation. In order to incorporate theses new dimensions, scholars have purposed that rural development focuses territories and their dynamics. From this point of view have appeared the territorial approaches of the rural development, whose main preoccupation would become a spatial processes projection, under the angle of social, political, economic and institutional interactions. This article intends to discuss the incorporation of the concept of territory into the debate on rural development, questioning its use as an analytical reference