Shared Knowledges Workshops: Connectivity and Rural Development

This article presents les Ateliers des savoirs partages (Shared Knowledges Workshops), an intervention in rural settings based on collaborative exchanges between researchers and local practitioners which took place in three Quebec rural communities from 2018 to 2021. Its objectives were to strengthen collective action, to contribute to the development of the local social environment and to foster dynamic communities by stimulating social innovation. After having presented the modalities the workshops took in each locality, this text summarises the main similarities and differences between them and suggests some of the lessons that can be drawn from them. This experiment suggests that there are three basic conditions for the emergence and sustainability of social innovations in rural areas: connectivity, anchoring in local realities and the production of a positive identity.