Since the issue of the abandonment of rural territories has been reintroduced into the agenda of national and European public policies, decisions and rules have been made with an aim that seem to be leading to an entrenchment of the conflict between the interests of the population that remains in the forgotten areas and the interests of other policies that are strongly anchored in long-term strategies.

The rules in which these strategic decisions are translated clash with territories and communities on which a decrease or a set of rules is imposed that makes it impossible for traditional activities to develop and adapt to the new times.

In this context, the citizens of remote (or, in popular Spanish terminology, ‘empty’) areas, who observe how other interests prevail over their demands, are confronted with a tide of ‘alien’ rules, imposed, experienced as ‘impositions’ that necessarily generate conflict, just when it seemed that positive discrimination in favour of their particular conditions would have been passed in the context of the ‘European long-term strategy for rural areas’.

Against this backdrop, this collective work aims to provide an study of some of these conflicts, to balance the particular interests of rural territories with the major strategic objectives that mark the institutional agenda, and to vindicate the importance of orienting the actions of public authorities towards the ever necessary restoration of the dignity of rural communities.