Plataformas, logísticas y redefiniciones de la ruralidad. Reflexiones a partir de los territorios rurales del norte de Apulia y del sur de Milán

The ongoing succession of ecological, economic and now health crises that have occurred since 2008 have triggered profound and complex processes of redefinition of rural spaces and societies in the Western world, characterized by new phenomena of social fragmentation, conflicts, separation and new interactions among social groups, ecologies and forms of spatial production. These crises, at least in the West, have reinforced the meaning and value of digital and physical platforms for managing goods and services, a significant increase in the value of logistics in management and pro-duction processes, and an overall reframing of the meaning and value of “proximity” incorporated into “deglobalization” processes.There is no shortage of social and spatial research that has analyzed these phenomena, but the urban gaze has predominated. This confirms that rural space is the primary subordinated place in the West, the area where major transformation processes play out with the greatest violence. The combination of the logic of logistical platforms and movements translates into the configuration of “scalable” spaces and production, which reinforces processes of extractivism, intensifies and standardizes production, and sparks migratory phenomena. Two case studies – the large horticultural production in northern Apulia and the vast agricultural and re-creational area to the south of Milan – allow us to identify tools that propose a rural narrative that diverges from the mainstream’s, along with design elements for redefining the character and strategies of the rural project in Western contexts.