Behind China's growing economic and political power is a vast underworld of marginalized social groups. In this powerful and timely book, Wanning Sun focuses on the country's hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers, who embody China's most intractable problems of inequality. Drawing on rich and extensive fieldwork, the author argues that despite the critical role their labor has played in enabling and sustaining the country's remarkable economic growth, workers and peasants have become the nation's "subalterns." Sun focuses especially on the role of media and culture in negotiating the unequal relationships that exist between various social groups. She shows that in the face of the harsh reality of injustice and discrimination, China's rural migrants engage in media and cultural practices that are at once both mundane and profound-invariably imbued with hope and dignity, and motivated by the dream of a better life. Exploring the cultural politics of inequality in post-Mao China, this engaging and compelling book will be essential reading for all concerned with the increasing centrality of media and the cultural politics of representation in our highly digitalized and mediated world.

'Magnificent ... this book is unlikely to be surpassed' Telegraph This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 DUFF COOPER PRIZE An epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains: here Jesuit missionaries exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas, Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen, Armenian merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Featuring scholars and tyrants, bandits and CIA agents, go-betweens and revolutionaries, Himalaya is a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale, by far the most comprehensive yet written, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness. 'Magisterial' The Times 'His observations are sharp...his writing glows' New York Review of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

The issues analyzed in this book explore a range of questions that impact the sustainability of Australia's rural and regional education. Divided into three sections - university education, school education, and Indigenous education - the questions that are examined include: * How can students from homes where neither parent has received post-school education be encouraged to undertake higher education? * How can the collective needs of some children - for example, Indigenous students - be met? * Is competition beneficial for attracting all types of learners? * How does one re-distribute resources to those who are in most need? * How do we reward the more effective academics and teachers who impact learning? * How do we measure this impact? * How do we keep the most talented and motivated people in the teaching process? * How does assessment become an on-going developmental process that invigorates and stimulates interest and understanding?

A TELEGRAPH AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 'Impressive . . . tender, unflinching' Guardian 'This is poetry in the grand tradition of annihiliation by desire. It's what the young are always learning, and the old, if they are wise, never forget' Anne Boyer, author of The Undying 'Brilliant . . . heralds the arrival of a frank and vital poetic voice' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti 'Frank and alert . . . an important voice in British poetry' Eley Williams, author of The Liar's Dictionary 'Direct and heart-breaking' Alex Dimitrov, author of Love and Other Poems 'A rare thing . . . razor-sharp' Julia Copus, author of This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte Mew In Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb turns poetry to an examination of the textures of class, youth, adulthood and death in the working communities of the West Country, from mobile home parks, boyish factory workers and saleswomen kept on the road for days at a time, to the yearnings of young love and the complexities of masculinity. Alongside individual poems, three sequences predominate: a series of 'Love Stories', charting a course through the dreams, lies and salt-baked limbs of multiple relationships; 'Diagnostics', which tells the story of the death from cancer of the poet's father; and 'Treetops', a virtuosic long poem weaving together grief and mental health struggles in an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming data of a life. The world of these poems is close, dangerous, lustrous and difficult: a world in which whole existences are lived in the spin of almost-inescapable fates. In searching for the light within it, this prodigious debut collection announces the arrival of a major new voice in British poetry.

Rural Development is a deliberate transformation towards the advancement of the financial and societal standard of living of the rural poor through amplified production, impartial delivery of possessions, and empowerment. In general, a deliberate transformation towards rural institution building and progression in technology. Bangladesh, nearly 50 years into its liberation, stays on the route to development and the country is looking forward to transitioning into a developed state by 2041. There is global pressure also. Rural development plays a key role in attaining the targets. The Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) is a pioneer institute for attaining rural development in Bangladesh. The academy is acknowledged as a center of excellence regarding training, research and action research. The institute was established in 1959 with the intention of provide training to the public officials and representatives of the local government and village institutions on diverse matters concerning to rural development. Still, the institution provides training to diverse stakeholders. Moreover, a large quantity of international clientele comprising scholars, research fellows, experts, government bureaucrats, affiliates of diplomatic corps and global organizations visit the academy. The academy has been steering socio-economic study from the time of its beginning. Research outcomes are used as training resources and contributions for introducing action research by the Academy itself. It also works as data resources and policy ideas for the policy makers, Ministries, and Planning Commission. In certain circumstances, these are also dispersed among the global organizations and institutes. BARD conducts investigational projects to progress models of better-quality institution, managerial arrangements in addition to harmonization and approaches of production. The project events generally include the villagers' development institutes, local bodies and public officials. To this point the Academy has directed more than 50 investigational projects on different facets of rural development. Finally, in the era of globalization and pressure of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the book provides an immense knowledge on "Rural Development" issue in Bangladesh perspective.

The captivating new drama of family secrets and second chances, from Sunday Times bestselling author Erica James It's the autumn of 1962 in the idyllic Suffolk village of Melstead St Mary. Evelyn Devereux's husband Kit is planning their 20th wedding anniversary party. But as they prepare to celebrate, Evelyn receives an anonymous letter that threatens to unravel the secrets she's kept hidden for many years - secrets that reach back to the war and her days at Bletchley Park. Evelyn's sister-in-law, Hope, has brought joy to countless children with her bestselling books, but despite having a loving husband and caring family, happiness has never come easily to her. Then in an instant her fragile world is turned upside down when she too receives an anonymous letter. Across the village, up at Melstead Hall, Julia Devereux has married into a life beyond anything she could have dreamt of, not realising until it's too late that it comes with a heavy price. Meanwhile, in the sun-baked desert of Palm Springs, Romily Devereux-Temple, crime-writer and former ATA pilot, is homesick for her beloved Island House, where she's saved the day more times than she can count. On her return home, and shocked to learn what has been going on in her absence, she finds herself reluctantly confronting a secret she's kept hidden for a very long time. Once again Romily is challenged to save the day and hold the family together. Can she do it, and maybe seize some happiness for herself at the same time? From the gorgeous Suffolk countryside to the glamorous resort of Palm Springs, let Erica James sweep you away... *** Readers are enchanted by Erica's storytelling... 'A glorious summer story which sizzles with passion: idyllic location, compelling characters and lives so interwoven that their secrets have the power to change everything. I wanted it to go on forever' Cathy Bramley 'Joyously readable' Woman & Home 'The setting is almost a character in itself in this evocative tale of tears and laughter' Woman Magazine 'Erica James offers glorious escapism set in a house to die for' Sunday Express Magazine 'Full of warmth and appeal' Good Housekeeping 'A captivating read: beautifully written and heartrendingly sad' Daily Telegraph 'Absorbing and uplifting' My Weekly

Step into the magic of Lantern Square... A delightfully heartwarming story, perfect for fans of Holly Hepburn and Cathy Bramley. The Little Cottage in Lantern Square is Helen Rolfe's four Lantern Square novellas collected together for the first time. Hannah went from high flyer in the city to business owner and has never looked back. In the cosy Cotswold village of Butterbury she runs Tied up with String, sending handmade gifts and care packages across the miles, as well as delivering them to people she thinks need them the most. But when her ex best-friend Georgia turns up and wants in on the action, will Hannah be willing to forgive and forget? With her business in jeopardy she needs to maintain the reputation she's established, and discover who she can trust... Meanwhile, a mysterious care package lands on her own doorstep at Lantern Cottage. Who is trying to win her heart - and will she ever be willing to give it away? *The Little Cottage in Lantern Square is the collected Lantern Square novellas. If you have read and enjoyed the novellas, then you have already enjoyed The Little Cottage in Lantern Square. For more novellas from Helen Rolfe, try her Little Cafe at the End of the Pier series* ***

Health crises plague most economies irrespective of their average per capita income levels, and this is largely due to chronic and repeated illnesses. Contextualizing this paradigm in India, the India Public Finance and Policy Report: Health Matters is an attempt to discuss some of the most crucial issues faced by Indian health sectors and to examine alternatives for policymakers to provide affordable, reliable, and effective health care facilities to the people. This report compares three government-run social health insurance schemes-the Swasthya Sathi Scheme, the Aarogyasari Community Insurance Scheme, and a community-based health insurance scheme-to examine their effectiveness in reducing household's vulnerability to health shocks. Additionally, it brings to light the manipulation of health package deals by private hospitals to increase the amount patients spend on them. The report also estimates the inefficiencies across states and districts of India with regard to health care personnel and infrastructure. Moreover, the editors have put together a series of interviews with different stakeholders associated with the health care system, such as doctors, nurses, patients, and medical representatives, who discuss the problems that perturb this sector. Written in a lucid and non-technical language, this is a deeply researched theoretical and empirical commentary about health care and public polices in India.

Regional differences matter. Even in an increasingly globalized world, rhetorical attention to regionalism yields very different understandings of geographic areas and the people who inhabit them. Regional identities often become most apparent in the differences (real and perceived) between urban and rural areas. Politicians recognize the perceived differences and develop messages based on that knowledge. Media highlight and exacerbate the differences to drive ratings. Cultural markers (from memorials to restaurants and memoirs and beyond) point to the differences and even help to construct those divisions. The places identified as urban and rural even visually demarcate the differences at times. This volume explores how rhetoric surrounding the urban and rural binary helps shape our understanding of those regions and the people who reside there. Chapters from award-winning rhetorical scholars explain the implications of viewing the regions as distinct and divided, exploring how they influence our understanding of ourselves and others, politics and race, culture, space and place, and more. Attention to urban and rural spaces is necessary because those spaces both act rhetorically and are also created through rhetoric. In a time when thoughtful attention to regional division has become more critical than ever, this book is required reading to help think through and successfully engage the urban/rural divide.

Early Australian pioneers were blocked from advancing into the interior of the continent by the Great Dividing Range that runs along the east coast of the country. In their endeavours to expand the colonies westward and to open Australia economically, these early developers eventually found routes across the Great Dividing Range and into the interior. With this expansion, the larger and more productive Australia was born, for better or worse. Today, Australians face a divide of a different kind, but one that, nonetheless, requires crossing if we are to secure our national wellbeing into the future. The emerging division between rural and metropolitan Australia, along with the social, cultural and health inequities between the two groups has been the focus of government and social programmes in Australia for generations, yet the condition persists and is today exacerbated by the inexorable movement of Australian populations to larger regional centres and to our major coastal cities. For many years health researchers and health service providers have embraced the idea that scientific research into the social, economic, physical and psychological aspects of health problems in the community is the tried and true way to progress policy and initiate action for improvement of our healthcare system. The age-old grail is to demonstrate scientific facts and implement policy on that basis. If this process is maintained, all will be well. The wellspring of this current work is its embodiment of a city/country dichotomy in the life of the author. The strongest message about healing the divide between the two cultures (if indeed this might even be possible) comes not via scientific investigation directly, but via the existential and phenomenological experience first and foremost and is informed by the scientific motif after the fact. The divide, which is the focus of this work, has emerged in the interplay between an essentially nineteenth century European based rural ideology of frontier freedom, self-reliance, rugged determination and independence and an emerging Asia-centred urban ideology underpinned by more modern twenty-first century concepts of economics, life, space, place and opportunity. The book combines personal experiences of rural living with overviews of initiatives that aim to reduce inequities between rural and metro communities by training and supporting health professionals to work in rural areas where there is often an acute shortage of practitioners to meet the needs of these communities. This shortage of professional people in rural areas contributes to the growing separation of rural and urban cultures and to the poorer health status of rural people compared with that of urban populations. In this context, the book Across the Divide: Health and Wellbeing in Rural Australia explores options for reducing these divisions and improving the health and wellbeing of rural populations in Australia. It focuses on health status and the emerging inequities experienced by rural people and explores ways of improving access to services and practicing health professionals, health education and health literacy.

For a number of years, Roger Scruton has contributed a weekly article to the "Financial Times" on country matters. Always beautifully written, one of these pieces ("Vegetables") won the 2002 prize from The Queen's English Society for the best piece of prose writing of the year. These are not sentimental bucolic rambles. Scruton's prose is devoid of sentimentality and soggy nostalgia. Whatever he writes about, he always writes with serious purpose. He speaks up for the country dweller, who sees his or her world eroded by the wishy-washy liberal commands of Blairite do-gooders, who sit on their backsides in North West London pontificating about the needs of country people. Nature being red in tooth and claw is something that these people only know about from sitting in a classroom. Farming issues are equally important in this book. The devastations of the foot and mouth crisis showed graphically how great is the divide between town and country dwellers. And when the fate of people in the countryside is decided by bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg, their feeling of alienation is even greater. These are the causes that Professor Scruton espouses and he has become their most intelligent, articulate and clear-thinking advocate.

A critical exploration of how modernity and progress were imposed on the people and land of rural South Dakota The Rosebud Country, comprising four counties in rural South Dakota, was first established as the Rosebud Indian Reservation in 1889 to settle the Sicangu Lakota. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, white homesteaders arrived in the area and became the majority population. Today, the population of Rosebud Country is nearly evenly divided between Indians and whites. In Power and Progress on the Prairie, Thomas Biolsi traces how a variety of governmental actors, including public officials, bureaucrats, and experts in civil society, invented and applied ideas about modernity and progress to the people and the land. Through a series of case studies-programs to settle "surplus" Indian lands, to "civilize" the Indians, to "modernize" white farmers, to find strategic sites for nuclear missile silos, and to extend voting rights to Lakota people-Biolsi examines how these various "problems" came into focus for government experts and how remedies were devised and implemented. Drawing on theories of governmentality derived from Michel Foucault, Biolsi challenges the idea that the problems identified by state agents and the solutions they implemented were inevitable or rational. Rather, through fine-grained analysis of the impact of these programs on both the Lakota and white residents, he reveals that their underlying logic was too often arbitrary and devastating.

Life outside our nation's big cities comprises a remarkably rich aspect of America-culturally, historically, and physically. Because of the way we move through the country, however-on roads built for maximum expediency-most of us are rarely if ever exposed to these small communities, a trend that is moving these towns dangerously far off the maps of commerce and public consciousness. In Easy On, Easy Off, Jack Williams takes to the roads of the interstate highway system to explore America's small towns, bringing back diverse examples of both beautiful and neglected places that illustrate how shifts in modern transportation have influenced urban form. Most of these communities are little known beyond their discrete regions, yet their struggles to prosper are universal. Mill towns, county-seat court squares, villages of the Great Plains, mining towns, and California's forgotten Chinese settlements all share similar fates-overshadowed by interstate off-ramp towns and bypassed by high-speed traffic. Employing more than 150 historic maps and images, unique drawings, and contemporary photographs, Williams convincingly argues that irreversible changes have overtaken the landscapes of small-town America, with each community's economic and social vitality slowly shifting away to other commercial places that attach to our highway interchanges and extrude into strip malls. A tale of success perhaps for the highway system, the more urgent story relayed in Easy On, Easy Off is of the loss of the complex fabric of thousands of small towns that once defined this nation.

The origin of rural poverty is complex and multidimensional. Some aspects of this origin include culture, climate, gender, markets, and public policy. Similarly, the rural poor population is quite diverse both in the problems they face and the possible solutions to those problems. This book examines nature and characteristics of rural poverty and how it develops, its persistence, and how it has caused destruction to environmental resources. The quest for global stability and peace has placed poverty issues at the centre of deliberation. In the year 2000, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) directly addressed the problem of poverty and its alleviation. Natural resources degradation is usually understood in terms of over use of scarce non-renewable and potentially renewable resources. It entails damage or destruction of key natural resourcessuch as soils and forestsand the subsequent production of wastes. Low-income rural dwellers have much lower levels of consumption than middle and upper income groups, but occupy much more land per person than middle and upper income groups. Yet, low income groups consume less food and generally have diets that are less energy and land intensive than higher income groups. However, low income populations deplete natural resources for settlements, farming and extraction of resources for many urban dwellers. This book has created the linkages between poverty in rural areas and environmental resources degradation. It draws conclusions from examples from all over the world and emphasises on a case study in rural Ghana. This book is recommended for academicians, rural development professionals, environmentalists and the general public.

Public transportation in rural areas can be critical to connecting people to jobs, shopping, and health services. The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Formula Grants for Rural Areas Program (rural transit program) is FTA's only dedicated grant program for rural and tribal transit. FTA apportions nearly all program funds to states. This book examines FTA's funding, oversight, and other support for the rural transit program; changes in services, ridership, and costs since 2009; and challenges that rural and tribal transit providers face and possible actions to address them.

Farmworkers play a critical role in the nation's agricultural sector. However, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmworkers are among the most poorly housed people in the United States. To support the development of adequate, affordable housing for farmworkers, Congress enacted the Farm Labor Housing (FLH) Loan and Grant Program in the early 1960s. This program provides capital financing to buy, develop, improve, or repair housing for domestic farmworkers employed on farms or in agricultural or processing industries off-farm. The FLH program is the only federally assisted source of housing dedicated to farm labour, which is defined as services associated with the spectrum of farming activities, from cultivating the soil to delivering commodities to market. This book discusses the opportunities that exist to strengthen farm labour housing program management and oversight.

Today the federal government owns and manages roughly 635640 million acres of land. Federal lands and resources have been important in American history, adding to the strength and stature of the federal government, serving as an attraction and opportunity for settlement and economic development, and providing a source of revenue for schools, transportation, national defence, and other national, state, and local needs. Ownership and use of federal lands have stirred controversy for decades. This book examines the conflicting public values concerning federal lands, including the extent to which the federal government should own land; whether to focus resources on maintenance of existing infrastructure and lands or acquisition of new areas; how to balance use and protection; and how to ensure the security of international borders along the federal lands of multiple agencies.

The rapidly changing nature of life in Canadian rural communities is more than a simple response to economic conditions. People living in rural places are part of a new social agenda characterized by the transformation of livelihoods, landscapes, and social relations, changes that invite us to reconsider the meanings of community, culture, and citizenship. This volume presents the work of researchers from a variety of fields who explore social transformation in rural settlements across the country. The essays collectively generate a nuanced portrait of how local forms of action, adaptation, identity, and imagination are reshaping Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in rural Canada.

Suburbanization, affordable housing, mass transportation, loss of fertile lands -- these are modern problems, yet they are not new. Thomas Adams grappled with these same issues nearly a century ago, when he wrote Rural Planning and Development, a book that quickly became a touchstone for planners and planning in Canada. Reprinted for the first time and updated with commentaries by leading Canadian planners, this book highlights Adams' influence on the planning profession and the continued relevance of his comprehensive vision for planning -- to move beyond the demands of the moment to embrace long-term strategies for building stronger rural communities.

This case study is based on a consequent implementing of the Grounded Theory Approach. It takes a close look at rural women's life worlds, not only capturing them as agents in the ongoing process of social and political change, but also revealing concepts and motivations leading their agency. It clearly shows rural women in the Northwest Province of Cameroon involved in mass protests fighting for more democracy, and at the same time struggling to improve their participation in all fields of social action, from family level to the economic sphere and the political arena of local government.

This book analyzes the functions, content, methods, findings, and impacts of social and cultural research carried out by the worldwide network of 16 International Agricultural Research Centers of the CGIAR(Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). Its two main parts - "insiders" and "outsiders" - bring together the perspectives of over 50 eminent scholars and social researchers from 30 countries, working within the Centers or within outside academic and development institutions. The authors examine critically the priorities, strengths, and weaknesses of research on the socio-structural, behavioral, cultural, and institutional variables of developing agriculture, forestry, livestock, and fisheries. The studies focus on farmers' values, needs and knowledge, their patterns of social organization, issues of food security, natural resource management and poverty reduction. Alternative models of multidisciplinary research, reuniting biological, natural, economic and social sciences are scrutinized in the light of experience and results, with emphasis on the nature of social science research as a source of international public goods and a key contributor to induced development.

How were manorial lords in the twelfth and thirteenth century able to appropriate peasant labour? And what does this reveal about the changing attitudes and values of medieval England? Considering these questions from the perspective of the 'moral economy', the web of shared values within a society, Rosamond Faith offers a penetrating portrait of a changing world. Anglo-Saxon lords were powerful in many ways but their power did not stem directly from their ownership of land. The values of early medieval England - principally those of rank, reciprocity and worth - were shared across society. The Norman Conquest brought in new attitudes both to land and to the relationship between lords and peasants, and the Domesday Book conveyed the novel concept of 'tenure'. The new 'feudal thinking' permeated all relationships concerned with land: peasant farmers were now manorial tenants, owing labour and rent. Many people looked back to better days.