Bøger i Rural Studies serien

The 20th century was one of profound transformation in rural America, when demographic shifts and economic restructuring dramatically altered the lives of rural people and their communities. This work defines these changes and interprets their implications for the future of rural America.

"The right to farm, by name, is essential to the survival of us all as growers and eaters. Since the late 1970s, states across the nation have adopted so-titled right-to-farm laws to limit nuisance suits loosely related to agriculture. But since their adoption, there has yet to be a comprehensive analysis of what these laws do and who they benefit, not just what their title suggests. In the first national analysis and guide of its kind, this book uncovers that right-to-farm laws benefit the largest of operators, like processing plants, while traditional farmers win the least using such laws. Disfavored most of all are those seeking to defend their homes and environment against multinational corporations that use right-to-farm laws to strip neighboring owners of their property rights. Through what the book calls the midburden, right-to-farm laws dispossess the many in favor of the few, paving the path to rural poverty. Empty Fields, Empty Promises summarizes every state right-to-farm law to help interested readers track and navigate their local and regional legal landscape. The book concludes by offering paths forward for a more distributed and democratic agrifood system that achieves agricultural, rural, and environmental justice"--

We see that masculinity is no less significant in rural life than in urban life. The essays in this volume offer insight into the myths and stereotypes, as well as the reality of the lives of rural men. Interdisciplinary in scope, the contributions investigate what it means to be a farming man, a logging man, or a boy growing up in a country town.

At the turn of the 20th century, the California dream was a suburban ideal where life on the farm was exceptional. Agrarian virtue existed alongside good roads, social clubs, cultural institutions, and business commerce. California Dreaminganalyses the growth, promotion, and agricultural colonization that fed this dream during the early 1900s.

Provides advanced policy scholarship on rural North America during the 2010s, closely reflecting on the increasingly global nature of social, cultural, and economic forces and the impact of neoliberal ideology upon policy, politics, and power in rural areas. The chapters in this volume represent the expertise of an influential group of scholars in rural sociology and related social sciences.

Community leadership development programmes are designed to increase the capacity of citizens for civic engagement. This volume presents the results of a five-year study tracking community-level effects of community leadership development programs drawn from research conducted in Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Employing original fieldwork, historical analysis, and sociological theory, Sekine and Bonanno probe how Japan's food and agriculture sectors have been shaped by the global push toward privatization and corporate power, known in the social science literature as neoliberalism. They also examine related changes that have occurred after the triple disaster of March 2011.

A collection of 11 papers on issues of representation, power and identity within the British countryside. The work reports on research in this area which has looked to groups who feel themselves to be marginalized or excluded from the dominant ideologies in the countryside.

A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face.

Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty examines welfare participants who live in chronically poor rural areas of the United States where there are few job opportunities and poor systems of education, transportation, and child care. Pickering looks at welfare reform in four rural and impoverished regions of the United States.

Based on interviews and years of close interaction with more than 60 Iowa farm families, Bell answers two critical questions concerning sustainable agriculture: why some farmers are becoming sustainable farmers and why, as yet, most are not.

Analyzes the reaction of existing and former socialist countries to neoliberalism. Examines economic transitions in agriculture and the reconfiguration of socialism in Russia, China, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

From 1919 through 1953, the U.S. Department of Agriculture housed the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life--the first unit within the federal government established specifically for sociological research. Distinguished sociologists Charles Galpin and Carl Taylor provided key leadership for 32 of its 34 years as the Division sought to understand the social structure of rural America and to do public policy-oriented research. It reached the height of its influence during the New Deal and World War II as it helped implement modern liberal policies in America''s farming sector, attempting to counteract the harsh effects of modern industrialism on the rural economy. In addition, the Division devoted resources to studying both the history and the contemporary state of rural social life. Sociology in Government offers the first detailed historical account and systematic documentation of this remarkable federal office. The Division of Farm Population and Rural Life was an archetypal New Deal governmental body, deeply engaged in research on agricultural planning and action programs for the disadvantaged in rural areas. Its work continued during World War II with farm labor and community organization work. Larson and Zimmerman emphasize the Division''s pioneering practices, presenting it as one model for applying the discipline of sociology in the government setting. Published in cooperation with the American Sociological Association, Sociology in Government preserves the history of this pathbreaking research unit whose impact is still felt today.

Published with a new preface, this innovative study argues that if education is to be democratic and serve the purpose of economic, social, and cultural development, then it must adapt and respond to the specificity of its locale, the knowledge practices of the people, and the needs of those who struggle to remain in challenged rural places.

Everywhere you look, people are more aware of what they eat and where their food comes from. This book is about people throughout the United States who are building successful alternatives to the contemporary agrifood system and their prospects for the future.

Analyses transnational corporations, groups who resist them, and the primary context within which the relationship between transnational corporations and their opponents unfold: the state. Argues that globalization is a contested terrain in which the power of transnational corporations is affected by mounting opposition and internal contradictions.

Introduces the women miners at a large underground coal mine in southern West Virginia, where women entered the workforce in the late 1970s after mining jobs began opening up for women throughout the Appalachian coalfields. This work explores such topics as social relations among men and women, professional advancement, and union participation.

We see that masculinity is no less significant in rural life than in urban life. The essays in this volume offer insight into the myths and stereotypes, as well as the reality of the lives of rural men. Interdisciplinary in scope, the contributions investigate what it means to be a farming man, a logging man, or a boy growing up in a country town.

A collection of essays examining the various social, cultural, and economic intersections of rural place and global space, as viewed through the lens of education. Explores practices that offer both problems and possibilities for the future of rural schools and communities, in the United States and abroad.

Studies the rural labor processes and their national and international effects. This book examines the socioeconomic effects of the H-2 program on both the areas where the laborers work and the areas they are from, and, taking a uniquely humanitarian stance, considers the effects of the program on the laborers themselves.

A collection of essays which analyze and evaluate both the theoretical and historical contexts of the agrifood system and the ways in which trends of individual action and collective activity have led to an "accumulation of resistance" that greatly affects the mainstream market of food production.

A collection of essays examining the various social, cultural, and economic intersections of rural place and global space, as viewed through the lens of education. Explores practices that offer both problems and possibilities for the future of rural schools and communities, in the United States and abroad.

Asks whether revenue generated by wind power can be put to community well-being rather than corporate profit. Through case studies of a North Dakota wind energy cooperative and an investor-owned wind farm in Illinois, Keith Taylor examines how regulatory and social forces are shaping this emerging energy sector.

Examines the embeddedness of rural and farm women's lives in rural sociological research conducted by the USDA's Division of Farm Population and Rural Life (1919-1953). Explores how early rural sociologists found the conceptual space to include women in their analyses.