IMAGINED “RURAL IDYL” – NEW RESOURCE FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RURAL AREAS

Abstract: The article aims to demonstrate how the Pan-European tendencies for the post-productive transition in rural areas and multifunctionality in agriculture are implemented in Bulgaria. The analysis examines the following issues: how the “rural” is used as a resource for entrepreneurship through the variety of conceptions and meanings, ascribed by different actors and what activities they undertake to transform these meanings into resources for entrepreneurship. The study shows that establishment of the image of the “rural idyll” creates a basis for development of activities such as exploiting in a new way and consuming the „rural“. It argues that such activities demonstrate possible ways for post-productive transition in rural areas in Bulgaria but the transition is still in progress.

Keywords: post-productivism; multifunctionality in agriculture, imagining, exploiting and consuming the rural