Meeting the Challenge of Marginalization Processes at the Periphery of Europe

Under the influence of the enlargement of the European Union, there is now a renewed concern for marginalization processes in rural areas. Especially in countries at the periphery of Europe, these processes often have a large-scale and multifaceted character. As agriculture and rural areas have become dissociated, the marginalization or success of the one no longer necessarily affects the other, and not necessarily in the same way. Dealing with the phenomenon in policy terms requires tools to explicate it. In this article, we present a simple typology of marginalization processes as a first step to its disentangling. The typology is applied to Finland and Portugal, countries at the periphery of Europe. The results strengthen the idea that different processes with different characteristics are going on at the same time, requiring specific approaches.