Editorial[: Rural Change and the Revalorisation of Rural Property Objects]

Property regimes shape the social relations, in particular, social settings, and represent an important element for external intervention and sustainable rural development. The introduction recalls common aspects and specific conceptualisations of property analysis in the field of economics, sociology and social anthropology and summarises main academic discourses about property rights in order to develop a differentiated understanding of property. In Section 1, general trends in property relations characterising modern rural societies are outlined. It is argued that economic and social changes in rural areas have brought about a process of revalorisation of rural property objects. Property rights can be a useful analytical concept to scrutinise and understand the transformation processes in rural areas and, moreover, a concept that has meaning in everyday talk. More important than accounting new property objects is the notion that revalorisation is connected with shifts in the balance of rights and obligations, of benefits and costs, and with qualitative changes of internal and outward social relations of rural societies.