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Abstract The paper argues that animals are central to rural social life and a rural sociology needs to develop theorisations of the rural which incorporate this fact. It looks to environmental sociology, the sociology of the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘society’, for help in this respect, but argues that the debates (particularly the ‘realist’ versus ‘social constructionist’ debate) which have characterised recent sociology of the environment have focussed attention on the problems of conceptualising ‘nature’ at the expense of attempts to reconceptualise ‘society’. It ends by arguing that sociology needs a ‘New Societal Paradigm’ which would include at least ‘domestic’ animals within society, and recognise the social relations of inequality and hierarchy through which their life opportunities are structured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philip Lowe died in February 2020, and so an academic career spanning five decades in environmental and rural social science and the sociology of knowledge came to an end. A pioneer of the social science of environmentalism, since the early 1990s, Philip Lowe had been closely associated with the Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University in the UK and had been the intellectual force behind establishing rural economy as both a subject and mode of social science analysis. This article reflects on a career and the evolving concept of 'rural economy' as an economic form, a policy realm and a knowledge practice. Through this history, it presents an account of the contribution of Philip Lowe's research and writing that, as a result of his death, now stands as a bounded and complete body of work for the benefit of future generations of scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents several abstracts of articles on rural sociology. Reading the Space of the Farmers' Market: A Case Study from the United Kingdom, by Lewis Holloway and Moya Kneafsey examines the emergence of Farmers' Markets in Great Britain. Resource, Arcadia, Lifeworld. Nature Concepts in Environmental Sociology, by C.S.A. (Kris) van Koppen offers a tentative framework for bridging the gap between constructionism and the other nature approaches. Rural Community Life and the Importance of Reciprocal Survival Strategies, by Henk Meert stresses that not every deprived rural household should be regarded as excluded from society. Globalization, Localization and Sustainable Livelihood, by Leo de Haan concludes that research on sustainable livelihood will increasingly have to become multi-dimensional, multi-local and reciprocal. Finally, the article Can Rural Voices Effect Rural Choices? Contesting Deregulation in New Zealand's Apple Industry, by Megan K. L. McKenna evaluates the relative success of local contestation of the terms of neoliberalism and globalization.

This article explores the conceptualization of nature in environmental sociology, with emphasis on the sociological investigation of nature conservation. In doing so, it aims not only at making an inventory of concepts in environmental sociology, but also at adding to its theory. Most contributions to environmental sociology bracket environmental issues and nature conservation issues or, gray and green issues together, and mainly focus on the gray environmental problems of emission of pollutants, production of waste, and depletion of energy and raw materials. Correspondingly, nature or natural environment is taken in a broad sense that is comparable to physical environment. This broad conceptualization of nature is in need of differentiation and theoretical elaboration, if environmental sociology is to clarify issues in which the valuation of nature itself is a core problem. Nature conservation issues typically fall into this category. The main part of this article presents an analysis of different concepts of nature in environmental sociology. For the purpose of this analysis, the author takes environmental sociology in a comprehensive sense, incorporating not only authors that identify themselves as environmental sociologists, but also other social scientists that have contributed to the social theory of environment.

This article focuses on the problems posed during the first phase involved in implementing the Habitat directive in France, that is, the identification of sites at a national level. The approach taken consisted in drawing links, from a chronological perspective, between changes in the procedures on the one hand and the combination of players and institutions on the other, with the two exerting an influence on each other. The analysis mainly involved holding interviews with representatives concerned by the Habitats directive, consulting administrative documents and interpreting texts or declarations issued by socio-professional organizations or by associations. The system, explained in this article, is initially devised by the Ministry for the Environment. The problems of implementing the procedure, be they problems relating to administrative and scientific difficulties or disputes concerning its legitimacy is then explained. The types of dispute and the reasons why the Ministry became isolated, with a view to understanding the considerable modifications made to the system since 1996 as well as their repercussion, is also one of the issues.