Gender-based violence (GBV) can take many forms and have detrimental effects across generations and cultures. The triangulation of GBV, rurality and rural culture is a challenging and essential topic and this edited collection provides an innovative analysis of GBV in rural communities. Focusing on under-studied and/or oppressed groups such as immigrants and LGBT+ people, the book explores new theories on patterns of violence. Giving insights into GBV education and prevention, the text introduces community justice and victim advocacy approaches to tackling issues of GBV in rural areas. From policy review into actionable change, the editors examine best practices to positively affect the lives of survivors.

With an annual output, Research in Rural Sociology and Development, publishes scholarly content at the cutting edge of rural sociology. Addressing issues such as rural development and growth, globalization, labour relations, agrarian dynamics, and social and personal implications of rural and agricultural change, this series provides in-depth and up to date research on the local and global systems affecting rural dynamics.

Refugee flight, settlement, and repatriation are not static, self-contained, or singular events. Instead, they are three stages of an ongoing process made and mirrored in the lives of real people. For that reason, there is an evident need for historical and longitudinal studies of refugee populations that rise above description and trace the process of social transformation during the "full circle" of flight resettlement, and return home. This book probes the economic forces and social processes responsible for shaping the everyday existence for refugees as they move through exile.

Gay men often face struggles in the conservative world of rural life, due to the pervasive social stigmas associated with homosexuality and the lack of anonymity in a small-town setting. In this book, Preston and D Augelli present the results of in-depth interviews and surveys with rural gay men, providing unique and hitherto unknown perspectives on their experiences coping with intolerance. With sensitivity and humor, the authors narrate their attempts at accessing this hidden population in bars, campgrounds, social clubs, and political groups. This volume is a must-read for researchers, academics, and graduate and post-graduate students in health care, nursing, health policy, and social and psychological science.

Human Rights and the Third World: Issues and Discourses deals with the controversial questions on the universalistic notions of human rights. It finds Third World perspectives on human rights and seeks to open up a discursive space in the human rights discourse to address unresolved questions, citing issues and problems from different countries in the Third World: 1. Whether alternative perspectives should be taken as the standard for human rights in the Third World countries? 2. Should there be a universalistic notion of rights for Homo sapiens or are we talking about two diametrically opposite trends and standards of human rights for the same species? 3. How far these Third World perspectives of human rights can ensure the protection of the minorities and the vulnerable sections of population, particularly the women and children within the Third World? 4. Can these alternative perspectives help in fighting the Third World problems like poverty, hunger, corruption, despotism, social exclusion like the caste system in India, communalism, and the like? 5. Can there be reconciliation between the Third World perspectives and the Western perspective of human rights?

Interest in the special problems of rural areas and concern with rural development in general have increased substantially throughout much of the world in the years since about 1960. Attesting to this has been the dramatic increase in attention to rural problems in the scholarly and popular literature and by government agencies. At first the dominant focus was on development projects and the creation of new jobs. It was not long, however, until other related issues came to the fore, in particular the availability and quality of public services essential to achieve economic growth and improvement and having a direct bearing on the well-being of rural peoples. Most nations of the world have developed plans and launched pro-jects to improve rural public services and narrow urban-rural dif-ferentials in their provision. As one would expect, there have been great differences between nations in the severity of problems, foci of attention, program strategies and their general effectiveness, and degree of commitment and effort. Given this diversity, it seems ap-propriate to examine and compare rural service problems and efforts to ameliorate them in a sample of contrasting societies. Implicit is the conviction that (1) all nations can learn at least something from the experiences of others, and (2) by taking an international, com-parative view of the subject, certain generalizations can be established.

James C. Scott has researched and written on subaltern groups, and, in particular, peasants, rebellion, resistance, and agriculture, for over 35 years. Yet much of Scott's most interesting work on the peasantry and the state, both conceptually and empirically, has never been published in book form. For the first time Decoding Subaltern Politics: Ideology, Disguise, and Resistance in Agrarian Politics, brings together some of his most important work in one volume. The book covers three distinct yet interlinked bodies of work. The first lays out a framework for understanding peasant politics and rebellion, much of which is applicable to rural areas of the contemporary global south. Scott then goes on to develop his arguments regarding everyday forms of peasant resistance using the comparative example of the religious tithe in France and Malaysia, and tracing the forms of resistance that cover their own tracks and avoid direct clashes with authorities. For much of the world's population, and for most of its history, this sort of politics was far more common than the violent clashes that dominate the history books, and in this book one can examine the anatomy of such resistance in rich comparative detail. Finally, Scott explores how the state's increasing grip on its population: its identity, land-holding, income, and movements, is a precondition for political hegemony. Crucially, in examining the invention of state-mandated legal identities, especially, the permanent patronym and the vagaries of its imposition on vernacular life, Scott lays bare the micro-processes of state-formation and resistance. Written by one of the leading social theorists of our age, Decoding Subaltern Politics: Ideology, Disguise, and Resistance in Agrarian Politics is an indispensible guide to the study of subaltern culture and politics and is essential reading for political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians alike.

James C. Scott has researched and written on subaltern groups, and, in particular, peasants, rebellion, resistance, and agriculture, for over 35 years. Yet much of Scott's most interesting work on the peasantry and the state, both conceptually and empirically, has never been published in book form. For the first time Decoding Subaltern Politics: Ideology, Disguise, and Resistance in Agrarian Politics, brings together some of his most important work in one volume. The book covers three distinct yet interlinked bodies of work. The first lays out a framework for understanding peasant politics and rebellion, much of which is applicable to rural areas of the contemporary global south. Scott then goes on to develop his arguments regarding everyday forms of peasant resistance using the comparative example of the religious tithe in France and Malaysia, and tracing the forms of resistance that cover their own tracks and avoid direct clashes with authorities. For much of the world's population, and for most of its history, this sort of politics was far more common than the violent clashes that dominate the history books, and in this book one can examine the anatomy of such resistance in rich comparative detail. Finally, Scott explores how the state's increasing grip on its population: its identity, land-holding, income, and movements, is a precondition for political hegemony. Crucially, in examining the invention of state-mandated legal identities, especially, the permanent patronym and the vagaries of its imposition on vernacular life, Scott lays bare the micro-processes of state-formation and resistance. Written by one of the leading social theorists of our age, Decoding Subaltern Politics: Ideology, Disguise, and Resistance in Agrarian Politics is an indispensible guide to the study of subaltern culture and politics and is essential reading for political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians alike.

Our conception of the culture and values of the ancient Greco-Roman world is largely based on texts and material evidence left behind by a small and atypical group of city-dwellers. The people of the deep Mediterranean countryside seldom appear in the historical record from antiquity, and almost never as historical actors. This book is the first extended historical ethnography of an ancient village society, based on an extraordinarily rich body of funerary and propitiatory inscriptions from a remote upland region of Roman Asia Minor. Rural kinship structures and household forms are analysed in detail, as are the region's demography, religious life, gender relations, class structure, normative standards and values. Roman north-east Lydia is perhaps the only non-urban society in the Greco-Roman world whose culture can be described at so fine-grained a level of detail: a world of tight-knit families, egalitarian values, hard agricultural labour, village solidarity, honour, piety and love.

Rural development is inherently viewed as a positive thing; it is seen as something that brings together groups of individuals with automatic positive implications and outcomes. Policy rhetoric frequently uses popular terms such as involvement, participation and power sharing to describe rural development activities. However, the reality of experience on the ground does not necessarily concur with these ideals. It is not always clear who ultimately benefits from rural development: the State, the community or rural development practitioners. This book critically analyses key concepts associated with rural development policy and practice, and using the concepts of power and micro-politics to analyze rhetoric and reality, reveals the intricacies of rural development. Challenging popular ideals associated with rural development, this book presents the notion of rural development less as a spontaneous, all-inclusive affair and more as a limited, controlled and exclusive process. Ultimately it contends that within structures of rural governance, a regeneration power elite predominates development and regeneration activities.

This book offers important historical information on the state of rural electrification in the 1980s. It also summarizes the development of benefit evaluation methods, along with findings from recent research on the impact of rural electrification for development.

During the early 1980s China embarked on what can be seen as one of the world s largest social experiments ever. Decollectivization meant much more than the reorganization of agricultural production into family based farming. It signalled significant changes to rural social relations, when privatization, marketization and increased geographical mobility started tearing apart the economic and social institutions that had structured collective village life under Mao. The focus of this book is on how rural society has been reorganized in the 21st century. The first chapters outline the basic organizational structure of rural China and can be used as an introduction to the topic in a classroom setting. They show how the state and its social scientists draw up plans to overcome the perceived lack of rural social organization, and discuss the often problem-ridden implementation of their ideas. The second section presents case studies of institutions that organize key aspects of rural life: Boarding schools where rural children learn to accept organizational hierarchies; lineage organizations carving out new roles for themselves; dragonhead enterprises expected to organize agricultural production and support rural development, and several others. The book is of theoretical interest because of its focus on the re-embedding, or reintegration, of individuals into new types of collectivities, which are less predetermined by tradition and habit and more a matter of, at least perceived, individual choice. Most chapters are based on extensive fieldwork and contain vivid examples from daily life, which will make the book attractive to anyone who wants to understand how Chinese villagers experience the extraordinary social changes they are going through.

The key issues facing rural life and the rural church today are worth serious thought, serious theological reflection, and serious empirical evidence. The twenty-eight articles drawn together for the first time in this reader illustrate the significant contribution made to these debates over the past decade by the journal Rural Theology. The articles concentrate on the themes of perspectives from the Bible, perspectives from ordinary theology, theological and sociological perspectives, historical perspectives listening to visitors, listening to the community, listening to churchgoers, listening to church leaders and satisfaction and stress in ministry. The authors include voices from the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal Churches, from England, Scotland and Wales. Rural Life and Rural Church provides an invaluable resource for clergy and lay Christians involved in rural ministry initial and continuing ministerial education and formation Christian men and women living in the countryside.

Between the 1930s and the 1950s rural life in Europe underwent profound changes, partly as a result of the Second World War, and partly as a result of changes which had been in progress over many years. This book examines a range of European countries, from Scandinavia to Spain and Ireland to Hungary, during this crucial period, and identifies the common pressures to which they all responded and the features that were unique to individual countries. In particular, it examines the processes of agricultural development over western Europe as a whole, the impact of the war on international trading patterns, the relationships between states and farmers, and the changing identities of rural populations. It presents a bold attempt to write rural history on a European scale, and will be of interest not only to historians and historical geographers, but also to those interested in the historical background to the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, to which the changes discussed here provided a dramatic prologue.

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.

In the wake of BSE, the threat to ban fox hunting and Foot and Mouth disease, the English countryside appears to be in turmoil. Long-standing uses of rural space are in crisis and, unsurprisingly, political processes in rural areas are marked by conflicts between groups, such as farmers, environmentalists, developers and local residents. Using an innovative theoretical approach based on 'networks of conventions', this book investigates the 'regionalisation' of the English countryside through a series of case-studies. These studies are based on a set of 'ideal types': 'the preserved' countryside, where environmental pressures are strongly expressed; the 'contested' countryside, where development processes are shaped by disputes between agrarian and environmental interests; and the 'paternalistic' countryside, where large landowners continue to oversee patterns of land development. It looks in detail at landowners, residents, politicians, planners, farmers, and environmentalists and shows how these groups compete. The Differentiated Countryside argues that the countryside is increasingly governed by regional policies. It becomes hard to discern a single English countryside; we see the emergence of multiple countrysides, places where diverse modes of identity are expressed and differing forms of development take place. Such diversity, it is argued, now lies at the heart of rural England.

Despite China's rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, most Chinese still live in the vast countryside or have rural household registration. Although there was significant economic improvement in rural areas in the 1980s, the rural economy has been stagnating or deteriorating since then, and the book argues that the rural-urban income gap is giving rise to the potential for political instability throughout China. This book, based on extensive original research including interview fieldwork in rural areas, examines the nature of political culture and participation in rural China, discussing issues such as the support, or lack of it, for democratic values; levels of political interest; the ways in which Chinese peasants interact with village and local officials; subjective factors that motivate them to vote, (or not to vote) in village elections; and rural people's views on market-oriented economic reforms, local and national government, and the Communist Party. The book argues that although hitherto peasants? riots, sit-ins and demonstrations have been localised and uncoordinated, they are frequent, and have the potential to cause serious political crises for China's rulers. It concludes by considering the future political development of China's vast countryside.

Refugee flight, settlement, and repatriation are not static, self-contained, or singular events. Instead, they are three stages of an ongoing process made and mirrored in the lives of real people. For that reason, there is an evident need for historical and longitudinal studies of refugee populations that rise above description and trace the process of social transformation during the "full circle" of flight, resettlement, and the return home. This book probes the economic forces and social processes responsible for shaping the everyday existence for refugees as they move through exile.

Traces the rise and fall of rural England from the Middle Ages to the Second World War and the nature of the changes which have occurred.

This book is a detailed study of rural reform in China. After the death of Mao, and with the ascendency of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China began a programme of agricultural reform intended to increase productivity. Three major changes moved the agricultural sector from a centrally planned system to a more market-oriented system. First, replacement of collective teams by farming by households. Second, an increase in free markets for rural products, and increase in state prices for farm products, and the partial elimination of the two-tier price system. Third were changes in the economic structure that facilitied greater productivity and a 250% increase in average real rural incomes between 1979 and 1986. This book is unique in that it studies a single township (Dahe in Hebei Province) in depth over the two periods, thus providing a great deal of data about the effects of the reform at the village level.

In Ireland, family farming retains enormous ideological and cultural significance. As a social form it is one of the last preserves of male dominance in which women's contributions and concerns are largely overlooked. This book breaks new ground as the first major study of Irish farm families in which women are the focus of attention. Little is known of how gender relations actually work themselves out within farm families, or of farm women's understanding of their situation, but even a casual observer would conclude that Irish farm women are not without influence. This volume reveals how contemporary farm women experience life on the family farm (often through their own voices) and how they have managed to create their own spheres of influence, despite their apparent unequal status and invisibility in the male world of agricultures. This study not only makes farm women's subordination explicit, but in discerning the sources and force of their influence within and outside the farm family, it offers a challenge to existing explanations of the evolution of Irish rural social structures. It also suggests that feminist theories of the family need to pay closer attention to the mother's influence on social reproduction.

The study of gender in rural spaces is still in its infancy. Thus far, there has been little exploration of the constitution of the varied and differing ways that gender is constituted in rural settings. This book will place the question of gender, rurality and difference at its center. The authors examine theoretical constructions of gender and explore the relationship between these and rural spaces. While there have been extensive debates in the feminist literature about gender and the intersection of multiple social categories, rural feminist social scientists have yet to theorize what gender means in a rural context and how gender blurs and intersects with other social categories such as sexuality, ethnicity, class and (dis)ability. This book will use empirical examples from a range of research projects undertaken by the authors as well as illustrations from work in the Australasia region, Europe, and the United States to explore gender and rurality and their relation to sexuality, ethnicity, class and (dis)ability.

In Ireland, family farming retains enormous ideological and cultural significance. As a social form it is one of the last preserves of male dominance in which women's contributions and concerns are largely overlooked. This book breaks new ground as the first major study of Irish farm families in which women are the focus of attention. Little is known of how gender relations actually work themselves out within farm families, or of farm women's understanding of their situation, but even a casual observer would conclude that Irish farm women are not without influence. This volume reveals how contemporary farm women experience life on the family farm (often through their own voices) and how they have managed to create their own spheres of influence, despite their apparent unequal status and invisibility in the male world of agricultures. This study not only makes farm women's subordination explicit, but in discerning the sources and force of their influence within and outside the farm family, it offers a challenge to existing explanations of the evolution of Irish rural social structures. It also suggests that feminist theories of the family need to pay closer attention to the mother's influence on social reproduction.

Leach and Pini bring together empirical and theoretical studies that consider the intersections of class, gender and rurality. Each chapter engages with current debates on these concepts to explore them in the context of contemporary social and economic transformations in which global processes that reconstitute gender and class interconnect with and take shape in a particular form of locality - the rural. The book is innovative in that it: - responds to calls for more critical work on the rural 'other' - contributes to scholarship on gender and rurality, but does so through the lens of class. This book places the question of gender, rurality and difference at its centre through its focus on class - addresses the urban bias of much class scholarship as well as the lack of gender analysis in much rural and class academic work - focuses on the ways that class mediates the construction and practices of rural men/masculinities and rural women/femininities - challenges prevalent (and divergent) assumptions with chapters utilising contemporary theorisations of class With the empirical strongly grounded in theory, this book will appeal to scholars working in the fields of gender, rurality, identity, and class studies.