This book offers a unique perspective on rural development, by discussing various influential perspectives and making their risks and benefits understandable. The authors do not present a magical formula to solve all issues, or to show the best possible future. Rather, they give students, researchers, community leaders, politicians, concerned citizens and development organizations the conceptual tools to understand how things are organized now, which development path has already been taken, and how things could possibly move in a different direction. Van Assche and Hornidge pay special attention to the different roles of knowledge in rural development, both expert knowledge in various guises and local knowledge. Crafting development strategies requires understanding how new knowledge can fit in and work out in governance. Players in governance bring their own realities to the table, their own ideas on the knowledge necessary for development. Drawing on various theories and on projects and experiences on five continents, the book shows how ways to organize governance, approaches to development, and rural development perspectives, are inextricably tied. A community is much better placed to choose direction, when it understands these ties.