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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Rural communities
This two-volume set examines the process of rural integration in modern China. In short, this is how the state penetrates the countryside and transforms the rural population, thus consolidating the foundation of modern state governance. Drawing on contemporary examples of state integration while observing the background of traditional China, this book systematically examines the entire process of rural reconstruction of China over the course of the 100 years since the late Qing Dynasty. In addition, the book discusses the special characteristics of each period and current societal trends in the Chinese countryside. This volume explores the following aspects of contemporary state integration: economic, fiscal, cultural, social, lifestyle, and technological. The book will be an essential reading for scholars and students in Chinese Studies, Political Science, Rural Studies, and those who are interested in the rural reconstruction of China in general.
The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture: All Too Familiar studies how the mythology of the primitive rural other became linked to evolutionary theories, both biological and social, that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. This mythology fit well on the imaginary continuums of primitive to civilized, rural to urbanormative, backward to forward-thinking, and regress versus progress. In each chapter of The Rural Primitive, Karen E. Hayden uses popular cultural depictions of the rural primitive to illustrate the ways in which this trope was used to set poor, rural whites apart from others. Not only were they set apart, however; they were also set further down on the imaginary continuum of progress and regress, of evolution and devolution. Hayden argues that small, rural, tight-knit communities, where "everyone knows everyone" and "everyone is related" came to be an allegory for what will happen if society resists modernization and urbanization. The message of the rural, close-knit community is clear: degeneracy, primitivism, savagery, and an overall devolution will result if groups are allowed to become too insular, too close, too familiar.
It is now almost impossible to conceive of life in western Europe, either in the towns or the countryside, without a reliable mains electricity supply. By 1938, two-thirds of rural dwellings had been connected to a centrally generated supply, but the majority of farms in Britain were not linked to the mains until sometime between 1950 and 1970. Given the significance of electricity for modern life, the difficulties of supplying it to isolated communities, and the parallels with current discussions over the provision of high-speed broadband connections, it is surprising that until now there has been little academic discussion of this vast and protracted undertaking. This book fills that gap. It is divided into three parts. The first, on the progress of electrification, explores the timing and extent of electrification in rural England, Wales and Scotland; the second examines the effects of electrification on rural life and the rural landscape; and the third makes comparisons over space and time, looking at electrification in Canada and Sweden and comparing electrification with the current problems of rural broadband.
This book analyses the urbanisation of rural China in the period of the country's reform and opening-up based on an investigation of five villages in the Pearl River Delta region, analysing progress, problems and future prospects in the light of long-term investigations on the ground and follow-up fieldwork. Drawing on a vast body of data obtained from participation observation, interviews, archival documents, questionnaires and oral histories, the author charts the trajectory of urbanisation as rural landscapes, governance models, social structures and development dynamics have morphed into urban phenomena. Stimulated by outside capital and pro-growth policies, each of the five villages has undergone a distinct economic, social, institutional, cultural and demographic transformation while facing challenges and opportunities such as land requisition, residential areas with a strong concentration of migrants, changing power relations between state and local community, the influence of traditional lineage and clan structures and quandaries over identity. The book will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and Chinese Studies as well as general readers interested in contemporary China and Chinese urbanisation.
Scholars bring their field experience and their expertise in sociology, social anthropology, economics, political science, and other areas to bear on an understanding of what happened to a model socialist construction: the rural village cooperative of Israel, the Moshav. A number of the chapters describe re-studies of communities their authors had examined a generation ago. The overall result is a diversity of views from the perspectives of individual community members, community organizations themselves, and expert interpreters, about the causes and consequences of a decline in economic cooperation concomitant with a decline in government support and a decline in the role of agriculture in most communities and in the national economy. The processes examined here have considerable importance for the understanding of transformations taking place in vast regions of the world.
This book draws on preeminent planning theorist Patsy Healey's personal experiences as a resident of a small rural town in England, to explore what place and community mean in a particular context, and how different initiatives struggle to get a stake in the wider governance relations while maintaining their own focus and ways of working. Throughout the book, Healey assesses the public value generated by community initiatives and the impact of such activity on wider governance dynamics. Healey explores the power which small communities are able to mobilise through self-organisation and grassroots activism. Through the lens of Wooler and Glendale as a micro-society, the book centres on a community experiencing an economic and demographic transition. It focuses on three initiatives developed and led by local people - a small community development trust, an informal attentionmobilising network, and a Neighbourhood Plan project which uses an opportunity provided within the formal planning system. It examines how, in such civil society activism, people came together to promote local development in a place and community neglected by the dominant political economy. The book details the power and force of community initiative and its potential for transforming both the future possibilities for the place and community itself, as well as wider governance relations. Overall, it seeks to enrich academic and policy discussion about how the relations between formal government and civil society energy could evolve in more productive and progressive directions.
Azenha do Mar is a fishing community on the southwest coast of Portugal. It came into existence around forty years ago, as an outcome of the abandonment of work in the fields and of propitious ecological conditions. This book looks at the migration processes since the founding of the community and how they relate to the social inequalities for property and labour which prevail today. The book also reflects upon the personal experience of the ethnographer in the field balancing the importance of methodology on the one hand and fieldwork as a research process on the other.
The story of the interplay between finance, freeways, and urban form in the 20th century and their enduring impact on American cities and neighborhoods in the 21st. American cities are distinct from almost all others in the degree to which freeways and freeway travel dominate urban landscapes. In The Drive for Dollars, Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, and Brian D. Taylor tell the largely misunderstood story of how freeways became the centerpiece of U.S. urban transportation systems, and the crucial, though usually overlooked, role of fiscal politics in bringing freeways about. The authors chronicle how the ways that we both raise and spend transportation revenue have shaped our transportation system and the lives of those who use it, from the era before the automobile to the present day. They focus on how the development of one revolutionary type of road-the freeway-was inextricably intertwined with money. With the nation's transportation finance system at a crossroads today, this book sheds light on how we can best fund and plan transportation in the future. The authors draw on these lessons to offer ways forward to pay for transportation more equitably, provide travelers with better mobility, and increase environmental sustainability and urban livability.
The emergence of a truly global economy in the 1970s and the need to understand the subsequent changes in economic structure provided the impetus for this synthesis of the sociology of agriculture. The book offers the first formulations of a political economy theory that explains the transnational social and production relations of food and agriculture. Drawing upon studies of labour, technology, the state and gender, the contributors put forward a basis for reassessing and restating the intellectual framework of agriculture.
By detailing an explanatory sequential mixed methods study grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT), this book explores the role of effective educational leadership in developing multicultural acceptance in predominantly white schools. Drawing on the rich experiences and accounts of school principals in rural middle schools in the US, the volume asks how principals' personal attitudes, professional experiences, and the degree to which they view themselves as a mentor and influencer within the school impacts their approach to improving multicultural understanding amongst students, staff, and faculty. The text is organized into five clear chapters, providing critical reflections, a review of the relevant literature, and in-depth discussion of first-hand data. Six key findings relating to whole-school acceptance, the role of individual principal's attitudes, and support for teaching staff open new avenues for research and inform recommendations for the professional development of school principals. In presenting key theory and practical implications of research, this book will be crucial reading for researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the fields of educational leadership, multicultural education, sociology of education, and teacher education.
The rural tourism sector has become a key driver for social and economic growth and a major source of income for developing and low-income countries in many parts of Asia. Rural tourism is progressively viewed as a solution, increasing the economic viability of marginalised areas, stimulating social regeneration and improving the living conditions of rural communities. Responsible rural tourism promotes conservation of the natural environment, protects the authenticity of culture, and offers socioeconomic opportunities and benefits for local communities. This book encompasses case studies from a range of Asian countries and examines both successful and failed attempts in developing responsible rural tourism, and the learnings that we can adopt and adapt for future responsible rural tourism in the region. It will be of interest to students, researchers, stakeholders and policymakers in tourism.
Based on a detailed investigation of local sources, this book examines the history of the landed estate system in England since the mid-seventeenth century. Over recent centuries England was increasingly occupied by landed estates run by locally dominant and nationally influential owners. Historically, newcomers adopted the behaviour of existing landowners, all of whom presided over a relatively impoverished mass of rural inhabitants. Preferences for privacy and fine views led landowners to demolish or remove some whole villages. Alongside extensive landscape remodelling, rights-of-way were often privatised, imposing a cost on the economy. Social and environmental implications of the landed system as a whole are discussed and particular attention is paid to the nineteenth-century investment of industrial profits in estates. Why was the system so attractive and how was it perpetuated? Matters of poverty and inequality have always been of perennial interest to scholars of many persuasions and to the educated public; with this important book surveying environmental concerns in addition.
Emerging in the throes of a global pandemic that threatens Europe's economies and food security, International Labour Migration to Europe's Rural Regions combines a diverse range of empirically rich, in-depth case studies, analysis of their rural context specificities, and insights from labour market and migration theories, to critically examine the conditions and implications of rural labour migration. Despite its growing political, economic and social importance, our understanding of international labour migration to Europe's rural regions remains limited. This edited volume provides intricate descriptions of lived experience, critical theoretical analyses, analytical synthesis, and policy recommendations for this novel and developing phenomenon that has the potential to transform the lives of international migrants and local communities. The book's 25 authors represent a wide range of social science disciplines, with coverage of a vast range of Europe's rural regions, and diverse types of rural labour in areas such as horticulture, shepherding, wild berry picking and fish processing. The volume will be of interest to policy makers at local, regional, national and European levels, and scholars and students in a broad range of areas, including migration, labour markets, and rural studies. This book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com.
This book focuses on the transformation of rural places, peoples, and land endemic to the contemporary manifestations of globalization. Migration, global economic restructuring, and climate change are rapidly transforming rural places across the globe. Yet, global attention characteristically focuses on urban social and economic issues, neglecting the continued roles of rural people and places. Organized around the three core themes of demographic change, rural-urban partnerships and innovations, and landscape change, the case studies included in this volume represent both the Global North and Global South and underscore the complexity and multi-scalar nature of these contemporary challenges in rural development, planning, and sustainability. This book would be valuable supplementary reading for both students and professionals in the fields of rural land management and rural planning.
constructive discussion on the development path of Yangtze River Delta, which is the most prosperous area in China conducts detailed evaluation based on nearly a thousand historical materials comprehensive depiction of more than sixty years of the historic process of a Chinese famous village in-depth analysis of a special and important institution for rural areas in China
This book investigates urbanormativity-a concept that privileges urban normalcy and desirability over rural deviance and undesirability. The "reality" section outlines its foundations-urbanization, urban-rural systems, and urban dependency. The "representation" section explores urbanormative culture by considering cultural capital, media, and identity. The last section, "everyday life," examines urban-rural disparities in law and politics and in life within different communities. It concludes by calling for a rural justice approach that will revalue the rural.
This book discusses the elite capture taking place in the development programmes implemented through Grama Panchayats (GPs), the lowest tier in the rural local self-government structure in India. Inclusive growth being the cherished goal of all the developing countries, including India, the book assesses whether checks and balances incorporated in development programmes prevent elite capture and promote inclusive development. It also highlights the role of community-based organisations, such as SHGs, in ensuring development benefits reach marginalized groups. The policy makers in India introduced decentralised governance to facilitate the participation of marginalized groups in the planning and implementation of development programmes at the local level, and to ensure that development benefits reach them. International agreements such as the Hyogo Framework for Action, Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals also call for decentralised governance for inclusive growth. The issue of elite capture has traditionally been studied mainly from the sociological perspective, i.e., how the local upper/dominant castes and classes garner the positions and benefits. But with the new and structured governance system that is in place at the local level in contemporary India, this book explores how decentralised governance is addressing the issue of elite capture. The study closely analyses micro processes of decentralisation to understand how elite capture is taking place. Additionally, it examines this concern from both governance and economic perspectives. The scope of the book is wide, and encompasses several aspects such as the functioning of the local government, decentralised governance, checks and balances in development programmes, community-based organisations, the upward political linkages and elite capture. It is equally relevant to researchers from several social science disciplines, civil society, policy makers, and implementers from the grassroots to national level government.
Rural crime has long been overlooked in the field of crime prevention. Sustained academic interrogation is necessary, therefore, to reduce the extensive economic and social costs of rural crime as well as to challenge some of the myths regarding the prevention of rural crime. Rural Crime Prevention: Theory, Tactics and Techniques critically analyses, challenges, considers and assesses a suite of crime prevention initiatives across an array of international contexts. This book recognises the diversity and distinct features of rural places and the ways that these elements impact on rates, experiences and responses. Crucially, Rural Crime Prevention also incorporates non-academic voices which are embedded throughout the book, linking theory and scholarship with practice. Proactive responses to rural offending based on sound evidence can serve to facilitate feelings of safety and security throughout communities, enhance individual wellbeing and alleviate pressure on the overburdened and typically under-resourced formal elements of the criminal justice system. This book provides an opportunity to focus on the prevention of crime in regional, rural and remote parts of the globe. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology and practitioners interested in learning about the best-practice international approaches to rural crime prevention in the twenty-first century.
The tremendous loss of groundwater has been a longstanding concern in Kansas, where areas of the High Plains aquifer have plummeted. Groundwater Citizenship: Well Owners, Environmentalism, and the Depletion of the High Plains Aquifer investigates water conservation efforts, environmental priorities, and water supply awareness among private water well owners, a key social group whose water usage is pivotal to safeguarding aquifers. This book discusses how reliance on private and public water supplies influences watering practices by asking if owning a well changes the propensity to conserve water. To explore how water supplies shape environmental actions and beliefs, sociologist Brock Ternes constructed a one-of-a-kind dataset by surveying over 850 well owners and non-well owners throughout Kansas. His analyses reveal that well ownership influences several dimensions of water consumption, and he identifies how Kansans' notions of environmentalism are recalibrated by their systems of water provision. This book frames well owners as unique conservationists whose water use is shaped by larger structures-aquifers, water laws, and food systems. Groundwater Citizenship takes a sociological look at water systems to facilitate adaptive approaches to sustainable resource management.
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Poverty is perceived as an urban problem, yet many in rural Britain also experience hardship. This book explores how and why people in rural areas experience and negotiate poverty and social exclusion. It examines the role of societal processes, individual circumstances, sources of support (markets; state; voluntary organisations; family and friends) and the role of place. It concludes that the UK's welfare system is poorly adapted to rural areas, with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and cutbacks exacerbating pressures. Voluntary organisations increasingly fill gaps in support left by the state. Invaluable to those in policy and practice, the book recommends a combination of person-based and place-based approaches to tackle rural poverty.
This concise and unique volume explores the vital relationship between testimony, memory, and the community in medieval society. Joel T. Rosenthal assembles various categories of testimonies to illuminate how "ordinary" Late Medieval people saw themselves as units of their community, their awareness of the issues surrounding the theater of birth, their interest in the world of and beyond the village, and what aspects of the ubiquitous mother Church were worth recalling. Supported by primary sources and by modern scholarly focus on such issues as social memory, village life, rumor and gossip, and demography, this book provides both a wealth of source material and insightful discussion on how historians can chart the role of memory and community in its shaping of medieval identity and society.
Vu tells the story of Vietnamese farmers who have survived a 30-year war of independence and unification, its damaging legacies in their living environment, and the unfamiliar pressure of the market economy. Vietnamese famers are neither simply obedient beneficiaries of policy decisions made by higher authorities nor convention-ridden cyphers. Rather, they are sophisticated decision-makers capable of navigating the changes threatening to disrupt their lives over multiple generations. Vu's research pays particular attention to those farmers whose families have suffered from direct and indirect exposure to the toxic herbicides popularly known as Agent Orange. She demonstrates that their priority has tended to be the protection of their existing assets, rather than pursuing the promise of new riches, and that this tendency has helped them maintain stability in a turbulent economic environment. A fascinating study for scholars of Vietnamese anthropology and society, the book will also be of interest to sociologists and economists with a broader interest in the impact of economic and political change on rural lifestyles.
This book critically examines the socio-economic impacts of out-migration on households and gender dynamics in rural northern India. The first of its kind, this study unearths, through detailed regional and demographical research, the ways in which economic and migratory trends of male family members in rural India in general, and hilly regions of Garhwal in particular, affect the wives, children, extended families, and agricultural lands that they have left behind. It offers vital research in how rural India's socio-economic formations and topographic characteristics can today more effectively contribute to the national and global economy with respect to migratory trends, gender dynamics and home life. Furthermore, it investigates the collapse of agricultural and many other traditional economic activities without a corresponding creation of fresh economic opportunities. This book moreover elucidates how male out-migration from rural to urban centres has greatly re-shaped kinship and economic structures at places of origin and has consequently had a serious impact on the socio-psychological well-being of family members. This book will be of great value to scholars and researchers of development economics, agricultural economics, environment studies, sociology, social anthropology, population studies, gender and women's studies, social psychology, migration and diaspora studies, South Asian studies and behavioral studies.
The culture wars continue to rage across the United States. Clashes over hate speech regulations, affirmative action, abortion, immigration, art, history, and lifestyle questions suggest that America is more polarized than ever before. This study looks at the rapid changes occurring in cities and suburbs in order to understand these cultural conflicts which, according to Rodriguez, have arisen in part because Americans continue to view themselves as city people or suburbanites in a time when the two areas are converging. As suburbs draw more businesses and residents, they produce new forms of art and cultural events which longtime residents resist as undermining the essentially residential quality of suburbs. Similarly, in cities, new parking structures, highways, and downtown malls produce suburban landscapes that urbanites reject, seeing those changes as evidence of the intrusion of suburban culture. Four community conflicts in the Bay Area from the 1960s to the 1990s illustrate these changes. In the San Francisco Bay Area, freeways and rapid transit have brought city and suburb closer together. Local residents have resisted these changes that threaten their communities' original identities. In San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Concord, residents have clashed over the construction of freeways and rapid transit, urban and suburban redevelopment, affirmative action, and modern art. In each locality, rapid changes produced conflict over local identities, as white, black, and Chicano residents have attempted to maintain a clear distinction between urban and suburban culture in the face of forces that are driving city and suburb closer together. |
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