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To clarify the influence mechanism and action path of social networks on farmland abandonment, taking the hilly and mountainous areas of Ganzhou, China as the study area, this paper first explores the influence of farmers' social networks on abandonment; furthermore, a mediation effect model is introduced to test the inhibiting effect of farmland transfer on abandonment under the scenario of expanding farmers' social networks. The results show that the expansion of farmers' social networks directly aggravates farmland abandonment, but with the development of land transfer market, farmers' social networks help to reduce the transaction cost of farmland transfer, thus promoting land circulation and restraining abandonment. Considering the double‐edged effect of farmers' social networks on abandonment, this paper recommends that policies aimed at curbing abandonment should be channeled through local farmers‐based social networks, and encourage land transfer among farmers' relatives, friends, or neighbors, and so forth to reduce transaction cost in rural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Civic engagement involves active participation in political and nonpolitical contexts in one's community. Research consistently demonstrates that sociodemographic factors, neighborhood context, community size, and media use are all important antecedents of robust civic engagement. This paper focuses on the intersection between these latter two factors. My paper draws on multiple streams of research in the rural sociology and communication literature to develop a theoretical framework where rural individuals' use of local media promotes greater civic engagement. Using data from the 2018 Local News Survey, results show that the use of local newspapers and online news websites for local news and information leads to a higher probability of participation in local activities and local groups in one's community. However, results also show that getting local news and information from traditional formats such as local TV stations may no longer be associated with an increased probability of being an active citizen in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of Policy Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

American youth from rural backgrounds have made great strides to overcome challenges in college enrollment and completion since the 2000s. Yet little is known about how rural youth are financing these attainment increases—a pressing question in light of high college costs, rising student debt, and spatial inequality in the resources that students have to pay for college. This paper examines disparities in young adults' student debt by geographic background using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort. Regression analyses reveal that college‐goers from rural backgrounds accumulate more debt than those from suburban and urban backgrounds, adjusting for differences in sociodemographic characteristics. Rural college‐goers' higher debt can be partially attributed to differences in socioeconomic backgrounds and rates of inter‐county migration during college, and there is evidence that the additive influences of geographic background and gender contribute to particularly high debt among rural women. The findings suggest that longstanding spatial inequalities contribute to disparities in student debt and raise questions about the experiences of rural youth and communities in a debt‐based society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African cities are becoming increasingly suburban, yet we know little about suburban spaces, how they are historically produced and by whom. This paper argues that African suburbs can be usefully understood as postcolonial suburbs. The postcolonial suburb de-centres the Anglo-American suburban model and pays attention to the historical co-constitution of suburban space across colony and metropole. It draws attention to the colonial and post-colonial policies on land and housing that make suburban development possible, but also attends to the everyday ways in which suburban spaces are built through the efforts of self-builders and their house-building projects. Using the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the paper shows how these low-density residential spaces towards the edge of the city are being shaped by the new middle classes with their appetite for large houses and private cars. But these are not copies of suburban forms from elsewhere. Architecturally they are dominated by bungalows and villas, but these buildings are self-built rather than part of large planned housing schemes. Socially the suburbs are dominated by the middle classes, but these middle classes are oriented towards the countryside rather than towards the city. Drawing on interviews with suburban residents in Dar es Salaam, I show how self-build housing projects straddle the suburban and the rural in terms of economic investments, land security and social relations. The paper concludes by arguing that the colonial and postcolonial making of the suburbs produces landscapes of ruralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes and uses the National Solidarity Program (NSP) Afghanistan as a case study to question the idea of social capital building for poverty reduction. Specifically, it explores how development policy has been decoupled from its intended objectives as it hit the existing friction in the ground. The data draws from poor household experience in three different provinces of Afghanistan to assess how poor household is integrated into NSP and how existing social structure and relational dynamics shape the NSP outcomes. The finding reveals that household is experiencing a cluster of interlink disadvantages that make it impossible for them to draw on social capital to reduce their poverty. However, NSP failed to eliminate the asymmetrical relations which created poverty in rural society; instead, it boosted Neopatrimonialism culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regional diversity of communal persistence in nineteenth-century Spain has been well documented by historiographers. Although the explanation of this divergence has been attributed to the social and environmental context, together with the prevailing market incentives, that characterized the different rural societies of this period, there has been no clear assessment of the role played by each of these factors. Through a comparative study of the historical data at the provincial level, this paper analyses the relative contribution of these elements to that divergence. The results diminish the significance of market signals and show how the social and environmental conditions interacted to limit, or promote, the dismantling of the common lands. Apart from the greater need to resort to the commons when it was necessary to increase agricultural production in dry regions, this paper highlights the role of unequal levels of access to land in promoting enclosure. The Spanish case illustrates the limitations of the theories that predict the inevitable drift towards individual property rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The view of the commons as archaic, 'backward' and 'irrational' institutions for the management of resources has now been revised in favour of a more positive one, for both past and present societies. Indeed, it is clear that the commons had multifarious ecological and economic benefits for both medieval and early modern rural societies in Western Europe. That being the case, many scholars have seen the increasing expropriation of the commons in the transition to the early modern period as a sign of increasing inequality characterizing pre-industrial Europe, and many have lamented the loss of communal grazing privileges connected to processes such as land enclosure - pushing poor peasants into the 'abyss' with the removal of their final form of welfare. However, in this paper it is argued that the social distribution of the benefits to the commons were rarely, if ever, entirely equitable. In fact, in many historical contexts the benefits of the commons could also be highly restricted - crystallizing and entrenching stratifications themselves, and even serving as the 'vehicle' of further inequality. The expropriation of the commons did not necessarily make Western European rural societies any more unequal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, authors and institutions are ranked based on the number of publications in 10 core regional science journals during the period 2010-2014. Alternative rankings are constructed by considering only publications in the top four of the 10 journals and also by adjusting for journal impact factors. Two impact factors are calculated for each regional science journal. The first is based on citations by the other nine core regional science journals, and the second by citations from all journals in the database Scopus. Discussion is included regarding the patterns and consistency of the rankings across alternative criteria. Comparisons also are made to previous regional science publication rankings of authors and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of social research on rural New Zealand undertaken as part of the National Science Challenge (NSC 11) "Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities" allows a fresh look at rural development within the context of New Zealand's colonial history. The research suggests that government development programmes and legislation privileged those responsible for producing the bulk of New Zealand's export income. Cultural attitudes, structural inequalities and a failure to understand how the character of, and social relations in, rural areas have changed has impeded particularly Māori economic growth, the participation of women, and non‐farm sectors of rural society, to the detriment of all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoidance of a return to poverty is a priority within postpoverty alleviation programmes in rural China. As traditional social networks, clan‐based networks have long played a pivotal role within rural society and governance. However, few studies have examined their influence on the return to poverty of rural families. Therefore, we used the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) data from 2014 to explore how clan networks influence the risk of a return to poverty among rural households and its mechanisms. Our findings suggest that clan networks can reduce the risk of returning to poverty and that they have heterogeneous effects on families and regions with different characteristics. Their main function is to reduce the borrowing cost through an external support mechanism and to promote movements of the rural labour force to urban areas where they can earn higher nonagricultural stable incomes through an internal sharing mechanism. This study of the role of traditional clan‐based networks in poverty avoidance can contribute to their enhanced role in the new era, while also providing inputs for consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation, innovating existing follow‐up poverty alleviation guarantee mechanisms and promoting comprehensive rural revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This street participatory action research project explored the reflective schooling experiences of street identified Black men and women (ages 18–35) in two small low‐income neighborhoods. Secondary analysis of survey (N = 520) and interview (N = 46) data examined: (1) How are attitudes toward schooling and teachers affected by race, gender and age?; and (2) How do students utilize a street‐identity as a site of resilience inside schools? Overall, street‐identified study participants held positive attitudes toward schooling, but generally performed poorly in schools and had negative experiences with educators. No significance was found as a function of gender and age regarding attitudes toward schooling and attitudes toward teachers. Also, interview results, across gender and age, suggest school‐related structural challenges and poor teacher‐student relationships contributed to severe conflict between students and teachers; and between students. Interviewees argued some Black students internalized a street identity or became disruptive and even engaged in school violence as a protective mechanism to endure hostile schooling environments. Moreover, Street PAR is discussed as a method and intervention to improve student performance and resolve concerns between students and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the mechanism of rural economic restructuring is the basis for promoting the optimal restructuring of the rural economy and society as well as for reviving the countryside. We conducted a case study of Gongyi, a typical region experiencing rapid industrialization in inland China and systematically reviewed its economic restructuring process over the past 40 years after China's reform and opening‐up. On the basis of identifying spatial interfaces in Gongyi, we analyzed the influence of these spatial interfaces on the rural economic restructuring in Gongyi using geodetectors. The study showed that the influence of different types of interfaces has had a temporal evolutionary effect, the influence of a single human interface was higher than that of a natural interface. With the different stages of economic development, the influence of the interface is also differentiated. The influence of multiple interfaces increased after superposition, and the superposition of different types of interfaces constituted different patterns of rural economic restructuring in Gongyi. Overall, the influence of physical spatial interfaces on rural economic restructuring has decreased. Therefore, greater attention should be paid to the influence of abstract spatial interfaces in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new body of sociological research is finding that northern and rural youth, and in particular, low‐SES youth, face difficulties accessing higher levels of postsecondary education and lucrative fields of study such as the STEMs. However, existing research has yet to systematically measure the skills proficiencies of youth in these regions nor have we understood the factors which might account for regional differences. We draw on multiple cycles of Statistics Canada's Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A linked to the Programme for International Student Assessment scores to investigate how location of residence impacts skills proficiencies at age 15 in math, science, and reading outcomes. Overall, our results point to three key findings. First, southern youth outperform northern youth in mathematics skills. Second, we uncover a southern (both urban and rural) and northern urban advantage in reading proficiencies. Third, in science literacy, southern and northern urban youth experience significant advantages over youth from northern rural locations. While some of the skills differences are attributable to parenting styles, parental socioeconomic status, student academics, and province of residence, they are not completely attenuated by these factors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for future research and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer wildlife management practices are critical to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions across intensively used agricultural landscapes. Policies and initiatives aimed at encouraging these practices have generally focused on economic incentives, with limited effectiveness.Farmer identity theory addresses the emergence of norms, values and perceptions in farm management and can contribute to the development of policies and initiatives that engage more effectively with farmers and farming communities.Here we evaluate linkages between farmer identity and wildlife habitat management practices in the intensively farmed US state of Iowa.We conducted an exploratory factor analysis using data from a survey of over 1,300 Iowa farmers that asked their opinions on what constitutes 'a good farmer'. We use logistic regression to model relationships between farmer identity factor scores and contextual variables against participation in a set of habitat management practices.Four 'good farmer' identity types were identified and labelled as productivist, soil conservationist, wildlife conservationist and civic‐minded. Logistic regression results indicated that these farmer identity types have highly divergent responses to wildlife habitat management practices among Iowa farmers. Recreational factors may supplement identity and are also influential towards habitat production on farms.We conclude that farmer identity theory offers a critical link between social and ecological processes on Iowa farms. The research presented here quantitatively associates farmer identity theory with wildlife habitat management, increasing our understanding of how wildlife habitat practices and individual‐level farmer identities interact. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on fieldwork in Andean Bolivia, this article examines rural urbanisation as a process of disconnection between people and place impacted by flows of rural to urban migration. Ritual relations with place are perceived as particularly significant for Kallawaya healers in the municipality of Charazani. They take a disruption of acts that maintain bonds between people and place as a result of urbanisation – examined particularly in relation to house‐building rituals – as having knock‐on effects for indigenous communal identity. These same healers are conscious of this urbanisation as the present manifestation of a historical process. [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]

Despite Rural Sociology's long history of publishing rigorous research about rurality, one notable area for improvement is attention to race and racial issues. As Tieken and Wright argue, this special issue is an important first step toward expanding the journal's scope and reckoning with its historical failings. This issue introduction summarizes the critical insights the issue's articles offer the field at this pivotal moment of racial awareness and demographic change. The authors end with a call for emancipatory scholarship—that is, research that reflects the lived experiences of all rural residents and can be used to dismantle racist policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the growing political divide in the United States and how ideological polarization has increasingly assumed spatial dimensions, as rural areas have become strongly associated with Republican support, and urban areas have become associated with strong Democratic support. In the context of the recent Trump administration, marked not only by authoritarian tendencies, ethno‐nationalism, and hostility towards democratic institutions, but its denouement represented by the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021 and the weeks that followed, what are the implications for growing spatialized civic and political divides, and indeed for democracy itself? I discuss several main approaches taken by social scientists to explain the relationship between spatial and political divides in the United States, including those that focus on shifting political geographies, cultural factors, economic anxiety, and racial resentment. Then, pointing to several recent exemplars, I identify theoretical, methodological, and perspectival strengths that the discipline of rural sociology can and should engage in developing explanatory frameworks for better understanding these social and spatial shifts – shifts that are simultaneously crises of democracy and crises of epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, which also serves as the introduction for this special guest‐edited issue, examines the history of Rural Sociology's scholarly engagement with rurality, race, and ethnicity. We examine the historical patterns of how Rural Sociology has addressed race and ethnicity, and then present results from a meta‐analysis of empirical articles published between 1971 and 2020. Over time, the methodological approaches and scholarly focus of articles on race and ethnicity within Rural Sociology has gradually expanded to include more analyses of power and inequality using constructivist perspectives, and greater numbers of qualitative inquiries into the lived experiences of both white and nonwhite people. The articles featured in the special issue extend from Rural Sociology's growing attention to race and ethnicity. Together, they suggest the ways in which rural spaces are racially coded, how intersections with race and ethnicity exacerbate rural inequality, how the domination of people and the environment are co‐constituted, and how practices of racism are embedded within contextually specific ecologies. In drawing attention to these contributions, we suggest future directions for the discipline's engagement with rurality, race, and ethnicity, while simultaneously suggesting the ways in which our own disciplinary racial reckoning remains incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, rural destinations that once relied on the production and extraction of land and resources now rely on tourism as the primary economic pursuit. Such destinations have experienced a surge of new migrants in the form of tourists, permanent newcomers, and second homeowners. Scholars have turned to how permanent residents perceive these changes and new populations, revealing that in some instances permanent residents are more accepting of newcomers due to economic constraints. I extend this line of research by asking how, and under what conditions, permanent residents favorably view second homeowners, a specific type of rural in‐migrant. Drawing on ethnographic data in Rangeley, Maine, I develop the concept "discourses of resource dependency," to clarify how and why localities justify, explain, and ultimately pursue one economic resource over another. In this case, local residents view second homeowners as a resource that will ensure the town's economic sustainability, and this frame enables local residents to view their in‐migration favorably. This frame emerges not just from structural economic circumstances, but also from a confluence of historical and cultural conditions that elevate the import of second homeowners in Rangeley's place‐making project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding rural resident support for various forms of natural resource‐related economic development has been a common research topic in rural sociology. However, the vast majority of research has only evaluated support for one form of natural resource use at a time. The little research that has explored support for a wide variety of uses has found that residents are likely to support many of the suggested forms of development. We assessed rural resident support for seven forms of natural resource development: commercial logging, natural gas, mining, real estate, wind energy, tourism, and outdoor recreation. Using social exchange theory, this study examines the influence of perceived impacts of development, industry trust, and perceived industry power on general support for the seven forms of natural resource‐related economic development using a fixed effects generalized linear model among a sample of residents of rural Pennsylvania communities. Additionally, we use mixed logit discreet choice modeling to evaluate the drivers of relative support, meaning a stated preference for one form of development over other possible options. The drivers of general support and relative support were similar, with trust in industry and impacts to quality of life emerging as the primary drivers of both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, originally a Keynote Address at the XXVIII European Society for Rural Sociology Congress (Trondheim, Norway, 25–28 June 2019), reflects on my positionality as a citizen‐academic at a time when democracies around the world are threatened by runaway incivility, anxiety and hate. Such reflexivity ought to be encouraged in the field and ultimately leveraged as we practice engaged scholarship that also affords empathy and justice. Much of my recent scholarship represents, in part, a response to personal frustrations and anxieties in the face of tensions around authoritarian populism and rural‐urban asymmetries. The research reviewed touches on such subjects as political ontologies, the politics surrounding public and private concerns, the future as a Durkheimian social fact, rural‐urban linkages and social justice. The data presented attempts, collectively, to make the point the while the twenty‐first century is said to belong to cities, the field of rural sociology has never been more salient. The article speaks of how and why a recommitment to our sociological roots, which involves further embracing our sociological imaginations, may help others better grasp the field's value, while helping the academy better grapple with issues of social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article presents a unique amalgam across artistic research and rural sociology. We draw on a collaborative art residence programme between a University and an arts organisation in England, which invited an artist to respond to a highly contentious topic in rural England: housing development. The ambition for the residency was, firstly, to provide new perspectives on rural housing research, and, secondly, to provide a space for engagement between the local community, planners and academics. Through our interdisciplinary collaboration, we explore how Sander Van Raemdonck's artistic process worked towards these ambitions. The artistic practice involved a walk with the local community, a peripatos, in a post‐industrial site proposed for housing development. Drawing on the artistic practice, the interdisciplinary team developed then a second walk, a 'walkshop', to mediate between housing/planning experts and reflect on the experience of the artistic practice. Following those artists and social scientists that already utilise walking as a method, we argue that the artistic peripatos can support a multi‐sensory way of communicating, a way to get 'under the skin of a place'. More critically, we argue that artist in residence programmes provide rich opportunity to develop interdisciplinary research with artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fair distribution of benefits from index insurance matters. Lack of attention to social equity can reinforce inequalities and undermine the potential index insurance holds as a tool for climate risk management that is also pro‐poor. The aims of this article are to: (a) examine social equity concerns raised by index insurance in the context of climate risk management, (b) consider how greater attention can be paid to social equity in index insurance initiatives, and (c) reflect on the policy challenges raised by taking social equity into account as a mechanism for climate risk reduction. The article draws on learning from the CGIAR's Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and presents the cases of the Index Based Livelihoods Insurance (IBLI) and Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise Ltd. (ACRE) in East Africa. It proposes a framework for unpacking social equity related to equitable access, procedures, representation and distribution within index insurance schemes. The framework facilitates identification of opportunities for building outcomes that are more equitable, with greater potential for inclusion and fairer distribution of benefits related to index insurance. The article argues that systematically addressing social equity raises hard policy choices for index insurance initiatives without straightforward solutions. Attention to how benefits and burdens of index insurance are distributed, suggests the unpalatable truth for development policy that the poorest members of rural society can be excluded. Nevertheless, a focus on social equity—facilitated by the framework—opens up opportunities to ensure index insurance is linked to more socially just climate risk management. At the very least, it may prevent index insurance from generating greater inequality. Taking social equity into account, thus, shifts the focus from agricultural systems in transition per se to systems with potential to incorporate societal transformation through distributive justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political conflict in rural society during the Popular Unity Government (1970–73) by focusing on the mobilization of forestry workers in Panguipulli, a district in southern Chile. Adopting land invasions as their main strategy in the struggle for land and power, Panguipulli workers experienced a radical politicization by aligning themselves with the Peasant Revolutionary Movement, the "peasant front" of the Revolutionary Left Movement. Because of its relation with this emerging "new left," rural mobilization was a significant expression of the "revolution from below", which challenged the Popular Unity's "Chilean road to socialism." Moreover, because rural mobilization also took place in other areas throughout Chile where the Revolutionary Left Movement was influential, it gave rise to a grassroots project for radicalizing the government's agrarian reform. As a result, the rural "revolution from below" strongly influenced the content and trajectory of political conflict under the Popular Unity Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The sociology of natural resources and the environment constitutes a major field of inquiry in the research on human–environmental interactions. A constructive debate and dialogue on the relationships between environmental sociology (ES) and the sociology of natural resources (SNR) began at the 2000 International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Bellingham, Washington. Frederick Buttel argued that the two subdisciplines had different subject matters, levels of analysis, spatial focuses, theoretical orientations, policy relevance, and interdisciplinary commitments. These distinctive tendencies have been widely accepted in environmental and natural resource social science but have not been systematically analyzed. The primary objective of this research is to conduct an empirical test of Buttel's differentiating criteria through a systematic review of sample American sociological journal articles published in 2000 and 2014. The multivalue qualitative comparative analysis revealed that there was no clear‐cut divide between the two subfields regarding the combinations of empirical research characteristics, while the general tendencies within both of them became more diverse over time. The overall lack of empirical research evidence for rigid ES–SNR distinctions also indicates that there is more potential than typically realized to build an integrative environmental and resource sociology in the American context and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Dutch policy discourse it is increasingly thought that active citizenship will positively affect satisfaction with the living environment. This article challenges this assumption by examining whether and how volunteering in village life and individual perceptions of liveability are interrelated. Through a series of hierarchical regressions, we found that having the opportunity to volunteer in village life is not a significant predictor of perceived liveability. Moreover, by classifying rural inhabitants as non-participants, nominal participants and active participants in volunteering in village life, we determined that active residents evaluate liveability less positively than the other two groups. Accordingly, determinants other than volunteering and active citizenship are better able to predict perceived liveability, although the specific variables differ for each group of rural inhabitants. This suggests that governments overestimate both the willingness of rural residents to volunteer and the benefits of becoming active in village life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on four illustrative case studies from the Netherlands, this article discusses learning experiences gained from rural broadband initiatives. As an example of 'the big society' (or ' participatiesamenleving' in Dutch), initiatives try to step in where the market and the government fail. The main struggle seems to be negotiating between market and government interests, while simultaneously safeguarding local interests. Many challenges and frustrations arise from counter-tactics on the part of national market players, and governmentality-inspired actions of regional and local authorities. Local capacity - such as social, intellectual, and financial capital - proves to be crucial in negotiating external influences, but it is easily overburdened. Case studies show that volunteer burnout is a risk that potentially has a high impact. Despite neoliberal agendas and community-led development schemes that promote citizen initiatives, it remains challenging for communities to reclaim control over their digital futures. Members of the initiatives have to learn and professionalise in order to stand their ground in a competitive and complex broadband market, but this learning element seems to be only a by-product of the process towards achieving the tangible result for rural development, that is, high-speed broadband access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For rural communities, energy projects can provide a host of benefits, and yet also be a source of significant conflict. Place attachment has become an increasingly popular concept for understanding local responses to large scale renewable energy installations. However, there has been significantly less attention paid to how place attachment influences local responses to community-led developments. This study contributes to the body of research on place attachment by examining its role in shaping opinions on two locally initiated projects. Interviews were conducted with residents in two rural communities in the Scottish Highlands, where community organisations are developing renewable energy projects. The findings show that place attachment was an important motivator for the development of these projects, but that different types of place attachment also formed a key source of disagreement. Finally, the implications of these findings for rural communities engaging in community-led development initiatives will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, Finnish actors engaged in the conservation and sustainable use of local breeds on different levels and sectors were interviewed to find out how breeds are valued by different stakeholders and what kinds of policies and practices are preferred in their conservation and sustainable use; and which also gives rise to some ethical concerns. Four storylines based on sustainable use vs. conservation and service-based vs. production-based dimensions were derived from the research data. The research revealed a broad diversity of perceptions of the aims and means of conservation and sustainable use. Some stakeholders brought up different possibilities regarding the different means of in situ conservation. Yet, many were strictly in favour of conservation and against sustainable use. Moreover, in questions of ownership, stakeholders differed in their opinions. The colliding views diversify the conservation and sustainable use of landraces but simultaneously constitute a challenge to finding common aims and means to it. Communication between stakeholders should be improved to enable actors, at the implementation level, to make long lasting commitments regarding the conservation and sustainable use of local breeds. Furthermore, animals should be regarded as conservation actors, in addition to people and organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirement generally marks the end of working life and the start of a new life-stage, providing the potential for new contents and opportunities, while requiring adaptation of existing roles. Retired Swiss farming men and women usually continue working and living on the farm, but their roles change. Drawing on conceptual approaches from gerontology research, we first aim to comprehend how farming men and women experience and understand retirement by describing major aspects of adaptation during their transition to retirement. Second, we appraise the relevance of the retirement concept for the farming population. Qualitative-empirical evidence shows that retired farming men and women continue to devote time and energy to the farm for the sake of farm continuity and to maintain the farmers' work ethic, while transferring financial and managerial responsibility. Poor health and the inability to contribute physically to the family farm appear as major threats for 'ageing' farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his famous Distinction, Bourdieu set forth musical and artistic taste as reflections of class positions developed early in life. With classical music as an explanatory tool, Bourdieu argued that cultural capital becomes deeply embodied and difficult to change. In temperance of Bourdieu's use of class, we suggest an affective theory of taste through the case of traditional music, based on a performance of possibilities inspired by our experiences in two pubs, one English and one Irish. Commonly played in pubs, traditional music can draw on rural lore to share its message with singing patrons of mixed class backgrounds. We use traditional music to argue that place shapes diverse social ties at all levels of economics, education, and age. We do not dispute that class powerfully shapes taste. But through what we term the joy of transcendence - formed through distinct and relative experiences, bonds, and friendships, enacted through place - participants can find pleasure in opening the cages of class and connecting across difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to examine rural population/residential movements through a mobilities perspective to provide an inclusive analysis of the diverse processes of movement that (re)produce rural places beyond the dominant counter urbanisation narrative. We seek to contribute to the literature in two ways. Firstly, we examine a sample of rural residents who have moved house within a 10 year period to examine the full range of actually existing residential mobilities, including counter urbanisation, lateral in-migration and local mobility within an Irish context. We suggest that counter urbanisation provides only a partial explanation of rural mobility accounting for 44 per cent of our recent movers - moreover, within the counter urbanisation group, approximately a half of this group were originally from a rural context suggesting a more nuanced 'return-to-roots' movement rather than a stereotypical urban-rural movement. Secondly, we explore two relatively new dimensions of rural mobilities - the importance of the actual house characteristics to where respondents moved to and the pull of family networks as key mobility factors. In the Irish context explored in this article, we argue that rather than a search for greenspace and idyllic landscapes, decision-making is often driven by a desire for more private space (internal and external) and the presence of existing family networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 20 semistructured interviews with police officers from a rural sheriff's department, we present what we believe is the first in-depth examination of U.S. rural officers' views on gun control. We find that officers possess complex views about gun control, reflecting their multiple identities as both gun-oriented rural citizens and police who seek to control the situations they encounter at work. Specifically, we observed that rural police officers: (1) embrace a rural identity that implies support of gun rights over gun control; (2) report that police work experiences have caused them to embrace their police identity and to distance themselves from some gun-related aspects of rural identity (e.g., they have lost interest in guns over time and have increasingly dissociated from gun-enthusiast peers); and (3) have learned to incorporate aspects of both identities into their views on gun control, universally advocating for some gun control measures in the name of community safety, but rejecting others as part of rural ideological views about personal freedom. We discuss research and policy implications and suggest that policymakers must better appreciate the nuances and culture of rural places in order to gain rural citizens' and rural police officers' support for gun control legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines place-based poverty in Indian Country, emphasizing that reservation characteristics are influenced by the system of federal Indian policy that affects American Indian self-determination and antipoverty strategies within reservation boundaries. Using data from the American Community Survey five-year file, 2006-10, I model poverty rates using multivariate, nested regression along key dimensions associated with American Indian antipoverty strategies and place-based poverty. The results indicate that rates of female-headed households and opportunity structures, such as lack of work, contribute to higher rates of reservation poverty while gaming acts as a slight buffer against poverty. Surprisingly, natural-resource-related occupations, thought to be associated with expropriation of tribal resources, was not associated with higher poverty, while self-governance compacts, acting as a proxy for tribal autonomy, had no significant impact on poverty rates. As tribal governments seek to address poverty through strategies enabled by self-determination policies, there is a critical need for more comprehensive and reliable data to understand how and whether tribal governments can effectively adapt federal policies to specific reservation conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the reasons for low take-up of social assistance benefits are complex, stigma is understood to be an important factor. In this study, the proposition that financial need and social rights moderate the deterrent effect of stigma was examined with respect to China as a deviant case. Dibao, the world's largest social assistance scheme, is characterised by high take-up but poor targeting, stigma and informal discretion in the context of rapidly declining poverty. Qualitative fieldwork reveals how the contrasting stigmas of poverty and abuse are negotiated to claim benefits and illustrates the dangers of implementing social assistance without supportive political, legal and cultural infrastructures. Key Practitioner Message: • Dibao, the world's largest social assistance scheme, is characterised by high take-up but poor targeting; • The weakening of shame associated with injustice helps to account for the large number of ineligible people successfully claiming dibao; • The strengthening of shame linked to poverty helps to explain the low take-up of dibao by people experiencing poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ukrainian dacha is a rural site where urban residents grow food and relax during the summers, in the process also contributing significantly to households' food provisioning since the Soviet Union's collapse. This article seeks to understand how gendered class relations shape why people participate, or not, in dacha work. Using ethnographic data collected during fieldwork in Komsomolsk, a central Ukrainian town, I examine how people's process of accepting or rejecting the worth of dacha work is both a strategy of navigating market transition and a process whereby they reveal the ways in which age, physical ability, and sense of efficacy factor into whether dacha work is worth their while. These, I argue, are gendered class processes that have been overlooked in dacha research. By taking into account how gendered processes intertwine with class practices, we are able to observe how privileged masculinities reinforce the ideology of market transition, an ideology most evident in agricultural policy approaches favoring fewer and larger food production sites. Moreover, my interactions suggest the dacha enables men experiencing masculinity crises to accrue patriarchal dividends in exerting decision-making power over their wives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hispanics have the lowest health insurance rates of any racial or ethnic group, but rates vary significantly across the United States. The unprecedented growth of the Hispanic population since 1990 in rural areas with previously small or nonexistent Hispanic populations raises questions about disparities in access to health insurance coverage. Identifying spatial disparities in Hispanic health insurance rates can illuminate the specific contexts within which Hispanics are least likely to have health care access and inform policy approaches for increasing coverage in different spatial contexts. Using county-level data from the 2009-13 American Community Survey, I find that early new destinations (i.e., those that experienced rapid Hispanic population growth during the 1990s) have the lowest Hispanic adult health insurance coverage rates, with little variation by metropolitan status. Conversely, among the most recent new destinations that experienced significant Hispanic population growth during the first decade of the 2000s, metropolitan counties have Hispanic health insurance rates that are similar to established destinations, but rural counties have Hispanic health insurance rates that are significantly lower than those in established destinations. Findings demonstrate that the new destination disadvantage is driven entirely by higher concentrations of immigrant noncitizen Hispanics in these counties, but labor market conditions were salient drivers of the spatially uneven distribution of foreign-born noncitizen Hispanics to new destinations, particularly in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is being experienced by many rural communities in the United States, as evidenced by increases in the median age and the high incidence of natural population decrease. The implications of these changes in population structure for the daily lives of the residents in such communities have received little attention. We address this issue in this study by examining the relationship between population aging and the availability of service-providing establishments in the rural United States between 1990 and 2010. Using data mainly from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we estimate a series of fixed-effects regression models to identify the relationship between median age and establishment counts net of changes in overall population and other factors. We find a significant but nonlinear relationship between county median age and the total number of service-providing establishments, and counts of most specific types of services. We find a positive effect of total population size across all of our models. This total population effect is consistent with that found in other research, but the independent effect of age structure that we observe represents a novel finding and suggests that age structure is a salient factor in local rural development and community well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural areas become central sites for the development of the post-carbon transition, yet this is a highly contested and contingent process whereby neo-liberal models of development and framings compete with the emergence of the alternative circular eco-economy. The article argues for a grounded conceptual and empirical approach in tracing this overall process of sustainable place-making. It explores three key highly contested dimensions: reflexive governance, distributed eco-economies, and re-financialisation, arguing that such explorations are critical in developing more sustainable rural-urban functionalities for the necessary post- carbon and post-neoliberal transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communal property rights have long symbolized the apparent backwardness of rural Russian society in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on newly compiled data and qualitative sources, this article summarizes the institutions and practices of rural property rights in late Imperial Russia and shows that there was substantially more heterogeneity in what constituted peasant property rights than is commonly assumed. Archival and documentary accounts suggest that the emblematic practice of repartitioning communal land occurred relatively infrequently and, when undertaken, was generally managed in low-cost ways. Econometric evidence from Moscow province implies that repartitions were driven more by concerns over the distribution of associated tax burdens than the desire to reallocate productive assets. Along with an analysis of cross-sectional data on property rights and grain yields from European Russia, these findings suggest a weaker causal link between communal land practices and agricultural productivity than is typically asserted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the critical debate on the choreographies of care in farming ( Law) through an exploration of the inter-dependence of care and situated expertise in the context of vine work. It argues that care as the totality of those activities which enable the maintenance, continuation, and repair of the farming 'world', to paraphrase Fisher and Tronto's classic definition, depends on experiential knowledge. According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus attentiveness, responsiveness, and adaptation to the material environment are characteristic of high levels of expertise. Attentiveness, responsiveness, and adaptation are also what characterises good care ( Tronto; Mol). Through an autoethnographic account of acquiring competence in vine work, the article illustrates how through practical engagement with the material and social environment of the farm key elements of the logic of care ( Mol) are acquired. In conclusion, the article indicates some consequences of putting experiential knowledge at the heart of multi-scalar and multi-temporal cares farmers are increasingly asked to attend to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the concept of 'tactile space,' we evaluate the experiential learning environment of a university extension field day event focused on a sustainable agriculture innovation: biodegradable plastic mulch. Introduced by sociologist Michael Carolan, 'tactile spaces' are sensuously rich learning environments where participants interact with each other and the environment in an 'embodied' and 'embedded' manner leading to long-lasting attitudinal and behavioral change. In our study, farmers, extension professionals, crop consultants, and mulch manufacturers participated in a field day event designed to provide both embodied and embedded experiences in an effort to stimulate interest in biodegradable plastic mulch, an economically and environmentally sustainable alternative to polyethylene mulch. Field day participants engaged in hands-on demonstrations preceded and followed by focus group sessions. Enhancing the learning environment in these ways improved the success of the field day event by encouraging practice-based forms of learning, which supplemented and reinforced the claims made about biodegradable plastic mulch. However, the tactile space could have been enriched by providing more opportunities for participants to become embedded within the environment, and by adding elements to overcome the temporal limitations of the field day event. This research contributes to the broader literature on participatory research and extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addressing the dearth in studies on linguistic/semiotic landscapes in oral-language dominant rural communities, we use the notion of repurposing to show how people from rural areas of Livingstone and Lusaka in Zambia (South-Central Africa) extend the repertoire of 'signs' to include faded and unscripted signboards, fauna and flora, mounds, dwellings, abandoned structures, skylines, and village and bush paths (with no written names) in narrations of place. We illustrate how they use the system of signage to transcend the limitations of the material conditions in the rural-scapes by redeploying memory, objects, artifacts and cultural materialities in place to new uses, and for extended meaning potentials. We conclude that focusing on the semiotic ecology in multimodal linguistic/semiotic landscapes helps to accentuate the multisemiotic and diverse processual characteristics of meaning-making, even in areas that do not have scripted place and street names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]