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This article focuses on several abstracts on sociology. "Ontology matters: The relational materiality of nature and agro-food studies," by David Goodman examines This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro-food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labor process in the development of agro-food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro-biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labor process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post-structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor-network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the new bio-politics of agro-food networks. "A matter of life and death? Men, masculinities and staying behind in rural Ireland," by Caitriona Ni Laoire is set within the context of a growing interest in the gendered nature of rurality and of rural life, and in particular in the context of an emerging literature on rural masculinities. It focuses on rural men and in particular on the phenomenon of rising male rural suicide rates.

This paper suggests that recent debates over the future of rural studies have been, in some cases, highly dualistic, claiming that it is necessary to choose between political–economy or poststructuralism and between adopting a structuralist/modernist class–analysis or a poststructuralism/postmodernism in which class does not figure. It is argued that there are good reasons for resisting such constructions of choice, and the paper seeks to demonstrate the value of paying attention to discursive constructions of class. Drawing on four pieces of rural research, it is suggested that class is still a salient discursive construct, both within popular images of rurality and within the descriptions of rural life made by, at least some, rural residents. It is also argued that while many rural residents do explicitly reject class identities, often preferring to construct identities through a range of rural lifestyle discourses, these themselves often draw upon cultural textures of class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'new rural sociology' arguably represented the most significant watershed in the development of rural sociology during the 1970s and 1980s. I argue, however, that the new rural sociology, especially its dominant traditions of Chayanovian and neo-Leninist Marxism, has now been almost entirely superseded as a theoretical position in agrarian political economy by the international food regimes, commodity chains/systems analysis, regulationist, and actor-network traditions. In addition, Wageningen School research on `farming styles' and the 'cultural-turn' within rural sociology and rural studies have arisen, in part, as challenges to the more structuralist styles of reasoning within agrarian political economy. Parallel trends in the sociology of development are also discussed. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of these new late twentieth century traditions in agrarian political economy, particularly in comparison with the new rural sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several abstracts of research papers published in the July 3, 2001 issue of the journal "Sociological Ruralis." It discusses the cultural economics in the rural areas of Europe. The paper "Transnational Co-operation Between Rural Areas: Elements of a Political Economy of European Union Rural Development," by Christopher Ray considers the significance of the phenomenon in terms of the emergence of a rural development system. "Exploring the Dimensions of Culture Economies in Rural West Wales," by Moya Kneafsey, Brian Ilbery and Tim Jenkins, interrogates the nature and extent of the culture economy as a force for rural development in West Wales. The discussion draws on empirical material from research into four different product sectors, namely, specialty beef and lamb, organic fruit, vegetables and meat, specialty cheese and artisanal crafts. Of particular significance is the research paper "Governing the Boundaries of Viability Economic Expertise and the Production of the Low-Income Farm Problem in Australia," by Vaughan Higgins which discusses how economic expertise assumed prominence as key authorities in constituting previous collectivist forms of assistance as irrational, and in linking the future viability of Australian agriculture to the theories and practices of agricultural economists.

This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro-food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labour process in the development of agro-food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro-biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labour process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post-structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor-network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the 'new' bio-politics of agro-food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists commonly hypothesise that experiencing the impacts of climate change will lead actors, including farmers, to desire to address climate change. It is increasingly clear that farmers can detect the regional biophysical expressions and impacts of climate change. However, this has not led farmers to desire to take action on climate change. This begs the question: how then are farmers interpreting these experiences? We argue that political‐economic context, the structural conditions of capitalist production, contributes to how farmers perceive and understand the impacts of climate change. We draw from our novel political economy of relevance theoretical framework and apply this framework to a sample of over 100 qualitative interviews with Iowa and Indiana row‐crop farmers. We focus on their experiences with heavy rain events, a key impact of climate change in the Midwest. Our findings suggest that farmers become aware of, interpret and respond to heavy rain events within the context of capitalist production. This leads most farmers to see heavy rain events as barriers to achieving capitalist goals, rather than as signals of the reconsider climate scepticism or the need to mitigate contributions to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are ever-growing demands on farmers to consider the wider environmental implications of production, not least in the Baltic Sea Region where concerns about agricultural-related eutrophication are significant. In Sweden, farmers are being nudged through voluntary agro-environmental measures, enticed by the market and compelled to make the transition from a productivist agriculture to a multifunctional one. Drawing on the 'good farmer' concept, inspired by Bourdieu, this article studies Swedish conventional and agro-environmental organic farmers' views and reflections on the changing relationship between farming practices and the environment. The article finds that despite 25 years of agro-environmental policy in Sweden, some conventional farmers are still mired in a narrow productivist mindset. That said, the study concludes that we should be wary of conceiving the 'good farmer' too strictly in productivist terms, given that the 'rules of the agricultural game' in Sweden are leading to a more divergent farmer habitus. Farmers are looking for opportunities within the multifunctional agricultural field, which increasingly demands and expects all farmers to embed social and environmental goals into production considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses qualitative and quantitative data as well as household panel data regarding actual purchases of organic food in order to make a psychographic profiling of organic consumers and examine recent developments of organic demand in Denmark. It is shown that contemporary organic consumers have become a heterogeneous group, since three distinct positively minded segments are identified. These positively minded segments hold a very high share of all organic food sales on the Danish market and are also driving demand forward. The Danish organic market can be said to have matured insofar as positively oriented segments that differ in their food involvement, shopping behaviour and levels of ethical concern have appeared, while marketing and distribution strategies have co-developed with these trends. We discuss our findings in the light of the attitude-behaviour gap that is said to exist in regard to organic consumption and the consequences that are thought to follow from the detachment of consumers from organic producers according to the much debated conventionalisation thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact that selected institutional factors have upon the entrepreneurial activity of women and men in rural areas. To do so, the results of the Adult Population Survey from the Spanish Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for the year 2004 have been used in a rare events logit regression model where rurality and sex have been introduced as interaction terms in order to identify any statistically significant distinctions of the impact of the selected independent variables upon rural women's entrepreneurial activity. The results indicate that compared to rural men, Spanish rural women tend to be less involved in entrepreneurial activities and are less optimistic about their abilities as entrepreneurs, although the fear of failure is not a significant impediment of their involvement in entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on recent studies of the importance of social networks and embeddedness in affecting the operation of businesses, this article reports the results of an empirical study of the social networks maintained by business owners located in three small towns in the highly peripheral Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Through a combination of a large-scale postal questionnaires and qualitative semi-structured interviews, the study found that, although business owners in all three towns place importance on maintaining embedded ties, there are differences between the towns in terms of the characteristics of the social networks maintained by owners. The respondents suggest several explanations for these differing patterns, including the number of immigrants in the local area and the cultural characteristics of local people. The article discusses the implications of these patterns for the future development of the businesses and the towns in which they are located. In particular, it is argued that the strength of local social networks maintained by owners in very remote Wick may serve to hamper both their future business development and that of the wider local economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical reading of theories on embeddedness emphasised in discussions on restructuring and other changes in rural areas. Despite expanding globalisation, embeddedness is considered a local or regional phenomenon that generally promotes the socioeconomic development of rural areas. We argue that the ways in which different forms of embeddedness affect industrial restructuring in a rural place, and how strongly they do so are not given a priori. In addition, embeddedness may differ in geographical scale. This makes us introduce a social field approach that we argue can handle the challenge of mapping multi-scale and multicultural forms of embeddedness and its significance for economic performance and local economic development. The empirical part of the article starts by analysing changes in the geographical embeddedness of the industrial environment in the municipality of Stryn, Norway. This is followed by a discussion of the cultural embeddedness of the environment, focusing on untraded assets in the present social field system of the industry. The case study demonstrates that industrial environments in peripheral areas should balance social fields of different untraded assets and scope to promote viable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the practice of reuse, the relation between individuals and objects, using as a case study the refillable glass milk bottle. Based on interviews with 22 individuals in mainly rural settings, the study aims to understand what the milk bottle means today to the many people who still use it, and what the socioeconomic and other structures are that sustain this kind of product reuse. The discussion exposes the way that reuse is about both consumption and disposal and is maintained by a web of household practices, revealing the milk bottle as both a site of resistance to supermarkets and a site for the construction of collective and individual identities. We also expose the way that the materiality of the bottle enables myth and trust to be articulated. We conclude that this reuse practice is a form of non-market mediated exchange, marking reciprocal relations of care and trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends the analysis of employment relations in New Zealand agriculture, begun in this journal in 1987, with a look backwards into how employment had developed from colonisation in the nineteenth century. That was extended by a further article in 1995, which considered the changes in employment relations that had followed the profound restructuring of the agricultural industries from 1984. Since 1995 there have been further profound changes but this time in New Zealand's parliamentary arrangements, following the introduction of the German proportional representation system of voting for the 1996 General Election. Subsequently governments have been coalitions and legislation has had to be less extreme. The Employment Contracts Act, 1991 has been replaced by the Employment Relations Act, 2000. High unemployment has been replaced by the lowest levels experienced in 30 years. The largest changes to affect the industries' employment relations, it is argued, are those brought about by the globalisation of agricultural supply chains and the changed labour market. Supermarket chains require not only quality-assured produce to avoid risks to customers' health and safety, but also that food contracted is produced by properly trained, rewarded and satisfied staff. Thus, by a strange quirk, supermarkets in the vanguard of food capitalism may achieve more for improvements in agricultural employment than successive government policies have struggled to do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A compelling body of international literature now exists on the political economy of biotechnology. This work has used capital as a lens through which to view the increasing economic importance of biotechnologies to the agricultural sector. It has, however, given little attention to gender. The purpose of this article is to argue for the significance of gender in studies of agricultural biotechnology, that is, to posit that it is not just capital, but the intersection between capital and gender that informs the application, creation and regulation of agricultural biotechnologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores whether vegetarianism is congruent with the alternative food economy. Although it has been largely neglected by scholars concerned with agro-food system alternatives, there are good reasons to undertake an exploration of vegetarianism in this context, not least because of the ethical relationships that it seeks to create within the food system. Drawing on recent work by Hilary Tovey in which she applies Eyerman and Jamison's cognitive approach to social movements, the article conceptualises vegetarianism as a social movement with the potential to effect change within the food system and, ultimately (perhaps), bring about rural development benefits. The article identifies and discusses a number of tensions and contradictions within the cognitive praxis of the vegetarian movement, and between the movement's cognitive praxis and external institutions, raising questions about the congruence between vegetarianism and the alternative food economy. It also makes some suggestions about the ways in which the vegetarian movement might reclaim a place at the table of the alternative food economy and in the process make a contribution to rural development. By way of conclusion, the article identifies a number of areas for possible future empirical research, as well as suggesting that the extension of an invitation to vegetarians to sit at the table of the alternative food economy has provided an interesting opportunity to reflect upon the menu on offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent contributions to the journal have commendably sought to extend agro-food studies from production to consumption in line with the consumption turn across the social sciences. In doing so, and inspired by actor-network theory, exception has been taken to the systems of provision approach to food studies. This approach is defended by suggesting that it has in part been misinterpreted as comprising an extension of agro-food studies to consumption rather than a general approach to consumption per se applied to food in particular. In addition, the later turn of such agro-food studies to consumption is shown to continue to lag behind the understanding of the culture of consumption that has evolved over the past decade. A plea is made for more constructive and informed dialogue with the literature on consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource–based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advanced: instead of considering it as being a quantitatively measurable property of individuals, communities or even nations, we suggest a qualitative, interactionist approach. Seen in this way, the analytical concepts of coping and social capital are helpful for understanding current trends from resource–based towards cultural economies. Tourism is one such trajectory which has become particularly significant in Iceland. Examples of coping and social capital are provided in the article, obtained from the authors’ studies of tourist operators in two Icelandic localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the diversity and the vibrancy which now characterize the sociology and political economy of agriculture in advanced societies are well captured in the recent special issue of the journal "Sociologia Ruralis," entitled "Agricultural Change." Moreover, as the guest editors suggest, it is now necessary to recodify the significant progress scholars have made in the field as the approach reaches a more mature stage of development. Not all the contributors are so encouraging, however. This comment aims to explore some of the issues raised in this special issue as a means of broadening the horizons of agrarian political economy and identifying some important integrative foci for debate. Areas which will become increasingly crucial in the next decade include, recognition of the multi-dimensionality of rural change; significance of the commoditization processes; and methods of incorporating the consumption sphere into comparative analyses. It is crucial that researchers fully acknowledge the multi-dimensionality of the contemporary agrarian question.

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