The constantly changing circumstances of rural life in sub-Saharan Africa have brought with them both successes and failures. The essays in this volume examine the various pressures and inducements to changing resource-use patterns faced by rural households, and explore the two-way causal relationship between technology and technological change on the one hand and other key elements of rural change - demographic, environmental, economic, social, and political - on the other. Contemporary approaches to the introduction of technical innovations are examined, and new approaches are proposed. Through case studies of particular communities, the wide-ranging impacts of past experiences are assessed, and the causes and consequences of indigenous initiatives are explored.

This is the first study of a transhumant cattle-raising community in Spain. Transhumance is the seasonal moving of livestock to another region. This book shows the social and economic factors upon which the continued vitality of this mountain village is based: the use of communal summer pastures; the transhumant groups which walk the cattle to the winter pastures over the mountains; and the system of taking turns for many tasks within the village. The book analyses the sharp divisions between the more rigid organization of life within the village, and the organization of life outside the village in the transhumant group which goes to the winter pastures in Extramadura.

In this ground-breaking study based on ethnographic research in Formentera, in the Balearic Islands, the author demonstrates that European kinship can become central to anthropological explanation once it is understood from a symbolic and cultural perspective. This book is an outstanding example of ethnographic analysis which is sensitive to the findings of demographic and historical research.

This book is about the presence of the absent- the tribes of Punjab, India, many of them still nomadic, constituting the poorest of the poor in the state. Drawing on exhaustive fieldwork and ethnographic accounts of more than 750 respondents, it explores the occupational change across generations to prove their presence in the state before the Criminal Tribes Act was implemented in 1871. The archival reports reveal the atrocities unleashed by the colonial government on these people. The volume shows how the post-colonial government too has proved no different; it has done little to bring them into the mainstream society by not exploiting their traditional expertise or equipping them with modern skills. This book will be of great interest to scholars of sociology, social anthropology, social history, public policy, development studies, tribal communities and South Asian studies.

This classic in the annals of village studies will be widely read and debated for what it reveals about China's rural dynamics as well as the nature of state power, markets, the military, social relations, and religion. Built on extraordinarily intimate and detailed research in a Sichuan village that Isabel Crook began in 1940, the book provides an unprecedented history of Chinese rural life during the war with Japan. It is an essential resource for all scholars of contemporary China.

National immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily life like for Latinos who have been presented nationally as "terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals"? Latino Heartland offers an ethnography of the Latino and non-Latino residents of a small Indiana town, showing how national debate pitted neighbor against neighbor-and the strategies some used to combat such animosity. It conveys the lived impact of divisive political rhetoric on immigration and how race, gender, class, and ethnicity inform community belonging in the twenty-first century. Latino Heartland illuminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously re-made by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern space. The volume draws on interviews with Latinos-both new immigrants and long-standing U.S. citizens-and whites, as well as African Americans, to provide a sense of the racial dynamics in play as immigrants asserted their right to belong to the community. Latino Hoosiers asserted a right to redefine what belonging meant within their homes, at their spaces of worship, and in the public eye. Through daily acts of ethnic belonging, Spanish-speaking residents navigated their own sense of community that did not require that they abandon their difference just to be accepted. In Latino Heartland, Sujey Vega addresses the politics of immigration, showing us how increasingly diverse towns can work toward embracing their complexity.

Engaging exploration of race and youth culture which examines the development of new identities, ethnicities and forms of racism. This text analyzes the relationship between racism, community and adolescent social identities in the African and South Asian diasporas.; This book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses in race and ethnicity, urban sociology, cultural studies and social anthropology. It will also have some appeal within social policy and social work.

Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan - Pioneer of Microcredit & Guru of Rural Development is a collection of ten articles and two poems on Dr. A.H. Khan - a world renowned social scientist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Dr. Khan was a guru of rural development, pioneer of microfinance and recipient of many prestigious awards. He led the way in rural development and poverty alleviation. Dr. A.H. Khan was founder of two world-famous institutions, i.e. Bangladesh (previously Pakistan) Academy for Rural Development (BARD) and Orangi Pilot Project (OPP). Dr. Khan was also recognized by many academics, world leaders and global organizations, such as the World Bank, for his contributions to poverty alleviation. Dr. Khan passed away on October 09, 1999, and per his will, he was laid to rest on the premises of the OPP. In honor of this great social scientist, his nephew, scholar and historian Nasim Yousaf, has published this work as a tribute to Dr. A.H. Khan on his 13th death anniversary. This compilation of pieces highlights Dr. Khan's work and achievements. This work contains articles authored by well-respected and illustrious scholars in their field and includes poems from an expert on rural development. The articles also include statements and views of a number of prominent and learned persons on Dr. Khan. These articles contribute to the enrichment of scholarship in the fields of microcredit, rural development, poverty alleviation and self-reliance based development. The author and compiler, Nasim Yousaf, is a recognized historian and his works have been published globally in various mediums. Additional contributions have been included from the following distinguished persons: Professor Norman Uphoff of Cornell University, Professor Emeritus George H. Axinn of Michigan State University and Akbar Khan, son of Dr. Khan. This work includes bios of the author and contributors as well as information on Dr. Khan's children. Sources, where available, are included within or at the end of each article.

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.

The contributions to this collection focus on the intersecting dynamics of gender, generation and class in Southeast Asian rural communities engaging with expanding capitalist relations, whether in the form of large-scale corporate land acquisition or other forms of penetration of commodity economy. Gender, and especially generation, are relatively neglected dimensions in the literature on agrarian and environmental transformations in Southeast Asia. Drawing on key concepts in gender studies, youth studies and agrarian studies, the chapters mark a significant step towards a gendered and 'generationed' analysis of capitalist expansion in rural Southeast Asia, in particular from a political ecology perspective. The collection highlights the importance of bringing gender and generation, in their interaction with class dynamics, more squarely into agrarian and environmental transformation studies. This is key to understanding the implications of capitalist expansion for social relations of power and justice, and the potential of these relations to shape the outcomes for different women and men, younger and older, in rural society. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

This volume shares significant contemporary "Francophone" contributions to developmental psychology outside geographic and intellectual borders of French-speaking countries. Except for the spread of Piagetian theory after World War II into Anglophone psychology, these new publications have not become so well known worldwide as progress in Francophone developmental psychology warrants. However, the work of a new generation of developmental theorists and experimentalists continues to shape important and original lines of thinking and research in France, Canada, and in other French-speaking countries. This work also contributes uniquely to issues such as sensori-motor development, perception, language acquisition, social interaction, and the growth and induction of cognitive mechanisms. Scientific concepts are not only embedded in a paradigm, but also in a culture and a language. Instead of writing about Francophone developmental psychology from "outside," this volume brings together original English-language contributions written by researchers working in different Francophone countries. Chapters summarize and interpret research on a given topic, making explicit the context of philosophical and theoretical traditions in which the empirical advances are embedded. Original essays are accompanied by editorial commentaries from eminent scientists working on the same topics in other parts of the world -- topics that are closely related to Francophone streams of thought and themes of study. Together, these essays fully and faithfully represent modern scientific perspectives toward understanding many facets of mental growth and development of the young child.

Contemporary discussions of Africa's recent growth have largely interpreted such growth in terms of structural transformation, based mainly on national- and sectoral-level data. However, the micro-level processes driving this transformation are still unclear and remain the subject of debate. This collection provides a micro economic foundation for understanding the particular growth processes at work within the region's rural areas, and in so doing provides important insights for policy action. The book provides valuable household- and farm-level evidence about the drivers of rural labour productivity, improvements in access to markets, investment in food value chains, and indeed the role of rural economic growth in Africa's ongoing rural transformation processes. Some of the features of Africa's ongoing rural transformation are similar to those of agricultural transformation as experienced in Asia and elsewhere. However, other features of Africa's rural transformation are unique, and pose important challenges for development policy and planning. Together, the studies compiled in this volume provide an updated, evidence-based, and policy-relevant understanding of where African countries are in their developmental trajectories and the region's prospects for achieving inclusive forms of development over the next several decades. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.

This book develops and examines the concepts and strategies for rural empowerment through the formation of a community-driven social knowledge management (SKM) framework aided by social technology. The framework is aimed at mobilizing knowledge resources to bridge the rural-urban knowledge divide while securing rural empowerment using digital connections and social collaborations built on strategies of self-sustenance and self-development. With key empirical findings supplemented by relevant theoretical structures, case studies, illustrative figures and a lucid style, the book combines social technologies and social development to derive a social knowledge management platform. It shows how the proposed SKM framework can enhance knowledge capabilities of rural actors by facilitating connection among rural-urban entities through formation of purposive virtual communities, which allow social agents to create, modify and share content collaboratively. The volume brings forward diverse issues such as conceptual foundations; bridging the rural-urban knowledge and information divide; issues of information and knowledge asymmetry; a knowledge-theoretic perspective of rural empowerment; knowledge capability, freedom of choice and wellbeing, to provide a comprehensive outlook on building a knowledge society through digital empowerment. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of development studies, rural sociology, management studies, IT/IS, knowledge management and ICT for development, public policy, sociology, political economy and development economics. It will benefit professionals and policymakers, government and nongovernment bodies and international agencies involved with policy decisions related to application of technologies for rural development, social workers and those in the development sector.

This book discusses the relationship, interaction and conflict between everyday life and various institutions in a specific village in North China, with a focus on the formal and informal legal systems. It vividly describes the village's "legal construction problems" as well as the customs and laws, and such it can be seen as a historical and innovative comment on China's problems. The book is based on the author's field investigations assessing vast amounts of material concerning local organizations, formal and informal authorities, economic exchange, religious rituals, as well as interviews with villagers and numerous court files. It presents an in-depth exploration of "pluralism of authority" in China's rural society, and examines how various authorities were formed. It also summarizes how various local disputes are resolved and discusses the villagers' understanding of the concept of "justice." Lastly, it suggests ways in which national law and local customs could communicate and collaborate.

49% of the world's population lives in small towns, villages and farms, yet until recent years criminological scholarship has focused almost exclusively on urban crimes. The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology is the first major publication to bring together this growing body of scholarship under a single cover. For many years rural criminology has remained marginalized and often excluded from the mainstream, with precedence given to urban criminology: this volume intends to address that imbalance. Pioneering in scope, this book brings together leading international scholars from fourteen different countries to offer an authoritative synthesis of theoretical and empirical literature. This handbook is divided in to seven parts, each addressing a different aspect of rural criminology: Rurality and crime Criminological dimensions of food and agriculture Violence and rurality Drug use, production and trafficking in the rural context Intersections between rural and green criminology Policing, justice and rurality Teaching rural criminology Edited by a world renowned scholar of rural criminology, this book explores rural crime issues in over thirty-five countries including Japan, Sweden, Brazil, Australia, Tanzania, the US, and the UK. This is the first Handbook dedicated to rural criminology and is an essential resource for criminologists, sociologists and social geographers engaged with rural studies and crime.

Originally published in 1988, this book documents genealogical developments which, together with changes in agricultural production, religious ethic, politics, gender relations, patterns of solidarity and trade were local adjustments to the economic crisis of the 1970s and 80s in Zambia. The book explores the dynamics of a peripheral 'traditional' economy, examining the extent to which village structures and value systems have changed.

This book develops and examines the concepts and strategies for rural empowerment through the formation of a community-driven social knowledge management (SKM) framework aided by social technology. The framework is aimed at mobilizing knowledge resources to bridge the rural-urban knowledge divide while securing rural empowerment using digital connections and social collaborations built on strategies of self-sustenance and self-development. With key empirical findings supplemented by relevant theoretical structures, case studies, illustrative figures and a lucid style, the book combines social technologies and social development to derive a social knowledge management platform. It shows how the proposed SKM framework can enhance knowledge capabilities of rural actors by facilitating connection among rural-urban entities through formation of purposive virtual communities, which allow social agents to create, modify and share content collaboratively. The volume brings forward diverse issues such as conceptual foundations; bridging the rural-urban knowledge and information divide; issues of information and knowledge asymmetry; a knowledge-theoretic perspective of rural empowerment; knowledge capability, freedom of choice and wellbeing, to provide a comprehensive outlook on building a knowledge society through digital empowerment. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of development studies, rural sociology, management studies, IT/IS, knowledge management and ICT for development, public policy, sociology, political economy and development economics. It will benefit professionals and policymakers, government and nongovernment bodies and international agencies involved with policy decisions related to application of technologies for rural development, social workers and those in the development sector.

The Making of a Village examines the social and cultural life of indigenous peoples in India. It unfolds intimate aspects of Adivasi history such as the birth of a village, its demographic formation, forging of social relations, in- and out-migration, and the dialectics of the village as a socio-physical space during precolonial and colonial periods. Drawing on oral, archival and empirical data from eastern India, it highlights the interconnected themes of inflection of identity; the change of the Adivasis from historic agents to colonial subjects and their arcadia to a servile landscape; and the indigenous notion of state. It also initiates a dialogue between the past and present to bring into sharp relief ideas of village community, indigeneity, migration, governance, colonialism, agency, subjecthood, rural change, environment and ecology. Redefining the study of rural sociology in South Asia, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, politics, development studies, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, Adivasi and indigenous studies, and South Asian studies.

This study, first published in 1993, analyses the relationship among poverty, food insecurity and commercialization in rural China by employing agricultural household models. Data are derived from a 10,000 household subsample of the annual rural household consumption and expenditure survey.

This book broadens the scope of the subject of rural education and enlivens the ways in which the subject may be studied. Through textual and visual analysis of a range of sources - including young adult novels, the farming simulation game 'Hay Day' and reality television programs - the contributors investigate how the lives of young people in rural spaces are mediated by a range of social locations including class, ethnicity and sexuality. Additionally, through rich and detailed ethnographic work, the book explores the complicated and multifaceted meanings of rural places and examines how these meanings shape experiences of schooling for teachers and students. In doing so, the book embeds the study of rural education in explorations of patrilineal inheritance on family farms, international migration, globalisation and economic restructuring. It aims to start a conversation about the robust and complex ways in which the confluence between 'rural' and 'education' may be imagined, experienced and researched. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

This book investigates the causes and effects of modernisation in rural regions of Britain and Ireland, continental Europe, the Americas, and Australasia between 1780 and 1914. In this period, the transformation of the world economy associated with the Industrial Revolution fuelled dramatic changes in the international countryside, as landowning elites, agricultural workers, and states adapted to the consequences of globalisation in a variety of ways. The chapters in this volume illustrate similarities, differences, and connections between the resulting manifestations of agrarian reform and resistance that spread throughout the Euro-American world and beyond during the long nineteenth century.

This book addresses a gap in Italian historiography by examining rural rather than city communes. In recent years, historians have increasingly focused on local and regional studies of village communities as a way of understanding medieval European history. This discussion of a group of villages around Lucca is the first detailed study of the origin of organized village communities in Italy for over seventy years, showing how the social and political structures of the countryside ran alongside those of the city. Chris Wickham analyses how local politics took recognizable shape as its ruling structures gradually emerged over time. His argument does not end there, and indeed extends beyond Italy, to France and Spain, providing sustained comparisons of rural development and social organization. The result is a rare combination of systematic local analysis and wide synthesis, aimed at illuminating the whole area of social transformation in twelfth-century Europe.

* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 * An Economist Best Book of 2017 * A Business Insider Best Book of 2017 * "A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)-an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class. This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down-but it's not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation's oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America's biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it's so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class. "Moving and magnificently well-researched...Janesville joins a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States. What sets it apart is the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis" (Jennifer Senior, The New York Times). "Anyone tempted to generalize about the American working class ought to meet the people in Janesville. The reporting behind this book is extraordinary and the story-a stark, heartbreaking reminder that political ideologies have real consequences-is told with rare sympathy and insight" (Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of a New Machine).