Often used but little understood, the word 'sustainability' is potent in its ability to evoke a better world based on economic, social, and environmental justice. The concept of sustainability, however, has been strikingly under-theorized. "Sustainability and the Civil Commons" provides what has been lacking since the publication of the Brundtland Report - a firm foundation and a clear vision of alternatives.

Using rural communities as her reference-point, Jennifer Sumner exposes the unsustainable impacts of corporate globalization, and develops a framework to explain why current definitions of sustainability are profoundly inadequate. From this foundation, she allies sustainability with the concept of the civil commons - including universal healthcare, environmental protocols, workplace safety regulations, and public education - demonstrating how globalizing the civil commons, not corporate-sponsored trade treaties, opens the way for truly 'sustainable globalization.' "Sustainability and the Civil Commons" moves beyond rural roots through Antonio Gramsci's model of hegemony, JA1/4rgen Habermas's theory of communicative action, and John McMurtry's life-value ethics to build a comprehensive understanding of sustainability that combines global reach with local focus. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners interested in sustainability, globalization, community development, and rural studies.

This book assesses the capacity of the rural populace in terms of their ability to perceive a change in climatic variables and, if so, how they react to these changes in order to minimize the adverse effect of climate change. It evaluates the role of education and exposure to change in physiological variables like temperature, precipitation, etc., in forming the right perception of climate change. While analysing livelihood diversification as a strategy to cope with climate change concerns across geography (districts), caste, education and the primary occupation of the households, the book also considers factors affecting diversification. One important aspect of well-being is consumption; thus, by focusing on consumption changes over time and relating it to livelihood diversification, the book makes an in-depth analysis of the coping mechanisms. Diversification adopted in the face of compulsion and in a situation of stagnancy may result in a range of low productivity activities, whereas diversification as an attempt to explore newer pathways in a vibrant context to reduce income risks and smooth consumption can be highly beneficial. The book, thus, focuses on job profile and occupational diversification of the sample households, the extent of instability in occupations and the distribution of households in terms of consumption pattern, the inter-temporal changes in it and the determinants. The book is useful for researchers, students in environmental studies, policy-makers, NGOs and also the common reader who wants to understand climate change, its effects on livelihoods and ways to overcome the shocks. It reflects on effective policies which can create awareness and empower people to explore opportunities for livelihood creation so that the overall is sustained if not improved.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

An exploration of the traditions and experiences in the lives of Highland Scottish women - in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and in the eastern counties of Nova Scotia where so many settled. Oral accounts obtained from descendants, enriched by written sources - precious archival collections and rare books - offer insight into the influences central to the cultural, religious, working, caring and devotional lives of Highland women: the dreams and realities of a better life in Nova Scotia.

Utilizing his fieldwork done in south Gujarat between 2004 and 2006, Jan Breman critically analyses the historical roots of the ongoing subordination of the rural poor in what has come to be recognized as a booming economy.

"Issues of rural development and women s empowerment receive critical attention in various debates. Trends and patterns of agricultural development in recent years have not always been favourable to women, especially rural women, who face marginalisation. Some of the essays make us rethink the relationship between employment and empowerment in a more nuanced way. An attempt has, therefore, been made in this book, to take stock of the contemporary challenges in rural women s empowerment in India and suggest viable solutions through a process of networking and dialogue to evolve a coherent perspective for the region as a whole. It is towards this end that the book would serve as a launching pad for further discussions."

A Cotswold Village - Or Country Life And Pursuits In Gloucestershire By J. Arthur Gibbs. Originally published in 1898. 452 pages. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents include: Flying westwards - A Cotswolds village - Village characters - The language of the Cotswolds with some ancient songs and legends - On the Wolds - A Gallop over the walls - A Cotswold trout stream - When the may fly is up - Burford: A Cotswold town - A stroll through the Cotswolds - Cotswold pastimes - The Cotswolds three hundred years ago - Cirencester - Spring in the Cotswolds - The promise of May - Summer days on the Cotswolds - Autumn - When the sun goes down - George Ridler's oven

This book highlights some of the main areas of debate around the subject of agricultural policy in Eastern Africa. Its major aim is to introduce the reader to different issues of economic and social change arising from agricultural development and to provide an understanding of some of the major difficulties faced by African countries in pursuing an agricultural policy.

This work documents the history of change during the colonial period in the Abakaliki division and town of south-eastern Igbo Nigeria over four main historical periods: pre- British Abakaliki; the beginnings of colonialism from the early twentieth century until the 1920s; the 1920s until the 2nd World War; and the post-war period through to independence in 1960. Within the context of rapid urbanisation and urban sprawl in Africa, the study focuses on one Nigerian town and its rural environs. It is the story of successful rural farmers and of an emerging town in their midst; and a study of ethnic interrelationships, integration and conflict between the town and the rural areas. It is a study in colonial history within the framework of British control and conquest; and also a story of African responses to colonialism: resistance, accommodation and innovation. The author characterises his work as more descriptive than theoretical, and as having regard for both anthropological and historical approaches and the positive and negative aspects of colonialism, without being overtly ideological.

Multiple caretaking arrangements exist in non-western societies with other members of the household and the community assisting the mother in child care. These others include the children's older siblings especially in subsistence based horticultural and or pastoral societies where sibling caretaking comprises a large portion of children's daily activities. During these caretaking sessions, older siblings may intentionally or unintentionally transmit culture to the younger children. Caretaking of small children thus implies transmitting cultural values to the children in everyday context during everyday activities. As very little research has been conducted in the area of sibling teaching, this study sets out to investigate sibling teaching among the Agikuyu of Kenya by means of video recording. It looks at the different teaching abilities and strategies of the children according to age and social status. It also pays attention to the cultural context, in which the teaching occurs, as well as to the reflection of social relationships found in the children's interaction. The author points out, that and in what way children can be important socialization tools to their younger siblings.

prestigious and significant volume offering theological relection on a wide range of issues relating to the countryside, the rural economy and rural life. At a time when it has been officially recognised that British society is deeply uninformed about rural matters, this is a critical contribution from the Church to the wider debate taking place. Chapters focus on: Cultural Diversity, Agriculture, Globalisation and Local Economy, Food Production, Biodiversity, Isolated Communities, Spiritual Refreshment for an Urban Population and more. Rowan Williams distils this shared wisdom in a theological afterword. Contributors include Graham James-Norwich, John Saxbee-Lincoln, John Oliver-Hereford, John Davies-St Asaph, Richard Clarke- Meath & Kildare, Anthony Russell- Ely, Bruce Cameron- Aberdeen & Orkney.

The assembled stable of writers has produced a highly readable - and nostalgic - volume. Some will make you laugh; some may bring tears. Any one is worth the price of the book.

Doing Fieldwork in Japan taps the expertise of North American and European specialists on the practicalities of conducting longterm research in the social sciences and cultural studies. In lively first-person accounts, they discuss their successes and failures doing fieldwork across rural and urban Japan in a wide range of settings: among religious pilgrims and adolescent consumers; on factory assembly lines and in high schools and wholesale seafood markets; with bureaucrats in charge of defense, foreign aid, and social welfare policy; inside radical political movements; among adherents of "New Religions"; inside a prosecutor's office and the JET Program for foreign English teachers; with journalists in the NHK newsroom; while researching race, ethnicity, and migration; and amidst fans and consumers of contemporary popular culture.

In most countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the fall of communism opened up the possibility for individuals to acquire land. Based on Katherine Verdery's extensive fieldwork between 1990 and 2001, The Vanishing Hectare explores the importance of land and land ownership to the people of one Transylvanian community, Aurel Vlaicu. Verdery traces how collectivized land was transformed into private property, how land was valued, what the new owners were able to do with it, and what it signified to each of the different groups vying for land rights.

Verdery tells this story about transforming socialist property forms in a global context, showing the fruitfulness of conceptualizing property as a political symbol, as a complex of social relations among people and things, and as a process of assigning value. This book is a window on rural life after socialism but it also provides a framework for assessing the neo-liberal economic policies that have prevailed elsewhere, such as in Latin America. Verdery shows how the trajectory of property after socialism was deeply conditioned by the forms property took in socialism itself; this is in contrast to the image of a "tabula rasa" that governed much thinking about post-socialist property reform.

Folklife along the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River records the history, lore, and lifeways of people who once occupied the land that became the Big South Fork national River and Recreation Area. The National park Service sponsored the research in1979, just as former residents were being displaced from their homes . Through oral history interviews and historical records, ethnographic study, old-time-traditions, this book recounts what life was like in the Big South Fork during the first half of the twentieth-century, when the region's agrarian economy was transformed by the timber and coal industries. Howell has added a new introduction and postscript.
Visitors to the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area will find this a useful introduction t the area's rich history and culture, while genealogists will discover a wealth of information about the region's historic settlements. Social scientists will recover valuable insights into the cultural dimensions of environmental impact assessment, along with a counter to conventional wisdom that tends to explain Appalachian culture in terms of either psychocultural or environmental determinism.
The Author: Benita J. Howell is professor of anthropology and chair of the America Studies Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is the editor of Culture, Environment, and conservation in the Appalachian South and author of book chapters on cultural heritage conservation and articles that have appeared in the Journal of East Tennessee History and the Journal of Appalachian Studies.

The world confronts major challenges in rural development as it enters the 21st century. Most of the world's poverty is in rural areas, and will remain so, yet there is a pro-urban bias in most countries' development strategies, and in their allocation of public investment funds. Rural people, and ethnic minorities, in particular, have little political clout to influence public policy to attract more public investment in rural areas. This document outlines a holistic and spatial approach that tackles some tough and long-ignored issues and also addresses old issues in new ways. The revised action-oriented strategy provides guidelines and focal points for enhancing the effectiveness of the World Bank's rural development efforts.

Some years ago, 'Faith in the Countryside', the report of the Archbishop's Commission on Rural Areas (Acora) was launched at Lambeth Palace. It was widely accepted as a good document, and a worthy companion to 'Faith in the City'. But while it seemed to put the rural Church on the agenda, it failed to come up with acceptable ministerial solutions. Andrew Bowden's book offers a model for future rural ministry which is practical, positive and a much needed follow-up to the Commission's report. He recognises that although rural dioceses have taken new initiatives, rural clergy and congregations need an overall vision and a practical strategy. This excellent handbook is as significant as the report itself for the future of rural ministry. It is now reissued with an expanded text to take recent developments fully into account.>

Now available in paperback, Kevin O'Neill's highly praised study of rural Ireland in the years leading up to the "Great Hunger" of the 1840s explicates the social, economic, and demographic conditions of the era. He argues that overpopulation and deprivation were inextricably linked to a third variable--the rapid economic development of rural Ireland that was shaped by British interests.

Punishing Places applies a unique spatial analysis to mass incarceration in the United States. It demonstrates that our highest imprisonment rates are now in small cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Jessica Simes argues that mass incarceration should be conceptualized as one of the legacies of U.S. racial residential segregation, but that a focus on large cities has diverted vital scholarly and policy attention away from communities affected most by mass incarceration today. This book presents novel measures for estimating the community-level effects of incarceration using spatial, quantitative, and qualitative methods. This analysis has broad and urgent implications for policy reforms aimed at ameliorating the community effects of mass incarceration and promoting alternatives to the carceral system.

"Contingent Work, Disrupted Lives" examines the repercussions of economic globalization on several manufacturing-dependent rural communities in Canada. Foregrounding a distinct interest in the 'grassroots' effects of such contemporary corporate strategies as plant closures and downsizing, authors Anthony Winson and Belinda Leach consider the impact of this restructuring on the residents of various communities. The authors argue that the new rural economy involves a fundamental shift in the stability and security of people's lives and, ultimately, it causes wrenching change and an arduous struggle as rural dwellers struggle to rebuild their lives in the new economic terrain.

Beginning with broader theoretical and empirical literature on global changes in the economy and the effects of these changes on labour, the text then focuses exploration on manufacturing in Ontario with an analysis of five community case studies. Winson and Leach give considerable attention to the testimony of numerous residents; they report on in-depth interviews with key respondents and blue-collar workers in five separate communities, ranging from diverse manufacturing towns to single-industry settlements. The result is an intimate contextual knowledge of the workers' lives and their attempts to adapt to the tumultuous economic terrain of 1990s rural Canada.

Winner of the John Porter Prize for 2003, awarded by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association.

For twenty-five years, Kathryn S. March has collected the life stories of the women of a Buddhist Tamang farming community in Nepal. In If Each Comes Halfway, she shows the process by which she and Tamang women reached across their cultural differences to find common ground. March allows the women's own words to paint a vivid portrait of their highland home. Because Tamang women frequently told their stories by singing poetic songs in the middle of their conversations with March, each book includes a CD of traditional songs not recorded elsewhere. Striking photographs of the Tamang people accent the book's written accounts and the CD's musical examples. In conversation and song, the Tamang open their sem their "hearts-and-minds" as they address a broad range of topics: life in extended households, women's property issues, wage employment and out-migration, sexism, and troubled relations with other ethnic groups. Young women reflect on uncertainties. Middle-aged women discuss obligations. Older women speak poignantly, and bluntly, about weariness and waiting to die. The goal of March's approach to ethnography is to place Tamang women in control of how their stories are told and allow an unusually intimate glimpse into their world."