Emerging meanings in understanding Rural Generational Renewal: a phenomenological analysis from the perspective of family farmers in Colombia

Abstract

Abstract Rural Generational Renewal (RGR) is a complex social phenomenon shaped by broader processes such as rural depopulation, demographic transition, urbanization, and changes in food production systems. Despite its significance, scholarly understandings of RGR are limited, often focusing on rural youth´s ties to the land and intergenerational land transfer. This article addresses this conceptual limitation by developing a broader framework grounded in the meanings that family peasant communities themselves attribute to RGR. Drawing on a phenomenological-interpretive analysis, the study is based on fieldwork conducted in San Juan de Rioseco (Cundinamarca, Colombia), including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and on-farm workshops. The findings suggest that RGR encompasses more than the retention of rural youth. Participants emphasized the importance of sustaining the rural population as a whole; the decentralization of land ownership as a defining element; and understanding generational transition as both a decision and an intergenerational process of transmitting knowledge and cultural practices. The article proposes an expanded understanding of RGR as a process aimed at ensuring the continuity of rural dynamics across its economic, social and cultural dimensions, with the central focus on the farm’s agricultural as a unit that anchors the ways of life of rural inhabitants.