The End of Rural Society and the Future of Rural Sociology.

Rural sociology confronts a continuing crisis of identity because of its failure to develop a sociology of agriculture. Historically, despite an initial focus on agriculture, rural sociology became deflected to the analysis of rurality. Recent emphasis of rural sociologists on the "turnaround" phenomenon is symptomatic but fails to deal with the fact that such turnaround represents the penetration of previously rural space by urban-based economic functions, Rural sociology could resolve its problems, as has agricultural economics, by providing ideological justification for land grant productionism or by developing a new constituency for itself. This would probably jeopardize its location in the land-grant system but in all likelihood represents the only way out of a closed and limited paradigm. Several Neo-Populist and Neo-Marxist developments in the sociology of agriculture hold promise for a revised rural sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]