This book examines examples of rural regeneration projects through the public administration lens, analysing how governance arrangements in rural settings work. In particular, the author focusses on the role of communities, business and tiers of governance (local, regional, national, and supra national) in terms of delivery and funding. By drawing on a range of case studies from the UK, US, Australia and South Africa, the book identifies best practice in governance, applicable to both academic conceptual debates and to practitioners engaged in real world governance of regeneration. While there are substantial political science, sociology and geography debates within the existing academic literature around food security, fair trade, urban-rural divides and supply chains, little has been written on the way in which governance in comparative global case study settings operates in achieving or underpinning rural renewal programmes. Through the inclusion of dedicated sections in each chapter summarising both the links between academic debate and practice, this book will be of great interest to researchers and policy-makers in the field of rural development, and environmental politics and governance in general.

Can their marriage be mended in time for Christmas?Lottie has always been thrifty. As a mother of three, it's even more important that she stretches the household budget as far as possible. Luckily, Lottie's penchant for taking broken items and upcycling them has worked wonders for living on a shoestring. Henry can't face telling Lottie he's been made redundant. Instead, he pretends to go to work as usual while frantically job hunting. The race is on to find another role before Lottie discovers he's another useless item for her collection - one that is beyond repair. Christmas is a time for giving, but will Lottie give Henry another chance if she learns about his lies? And can Henry give Lottie and their kids the life he so desperately wants them to have? A wonderfully warm and lighthearted married romance for fans of Holly Martin and Phillipa Ashley.

What were new ideas 30 years ago, such as the concepts of participatory development and systems thinking, are now accepted norms in international development circles. The majority of professionals engaged in rural development accept the proposition that the people who participate in development should play an active role in defining, implementing, and evaluating projects intended to improve their productivity and lives. However this goal remains unrealized in many development programs. Harnessing the Power of Collective Learning considers the challenges and potential of enabling collective learning in rural development initiatives. The book presents 11 case studies of organizations trying to develop and implement collective learning systems as an integral component of sustainable development practice. Through systematic reflection on action and experience, key lessons and themes emerge regarding the nature of voice, participation, feedback loops, accountability and transparency, that will be useful for many others in the development community. This book is a useful resource for academics, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of international development, sustainable development, organizational development, philanthropy, learning communities, monitoring and evaluation and rural development.

On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compania de Santa Gertrudis - the largest employer in the region, and a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company - may have committed murder. The alert was first raised at six in the morning: a fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that "no more than ten" men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all ten were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not ten, but eighty-seven. And there were seven survivors. A century later, acclaimed novelist Yuri Herrera has reconstructed a workers' tragedy at once globally resonant and deeply personal: Pachuca is his hometown. His work is an act of restitution for the victims and their families, bringing his full force of evocation to bear on the injustices that suffocated this horrific event into silence.

This book is an important intervention in the debate between economic and social development. It makes the case for understanding development in economic terms as well as in terms of well-being, empowerment and participation.

Collectively, cities take up a relatively tiny amount of land on the earth, yet emit 72 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Clearly, cities need to be at the center of any broad effort to reduce climate change. In Greenovation, the eminent urban policy scholar Joan Fitzgerald argues that too many cities are only implementing random acts of greenness that will do little to address the climate crisis. She instead calls for "greenovation"-using the city as a test bed for adopting and perfecting green technologies for more energy-efficient buildings, transportation, and infrastructure more broadly. Further, Fitzgerald contends that while many city mayors cite income inequality as a pressing problem, few cities are connecting climate action and social justice-another aspect of greenovation. Focusing on the biggest producers of greenhouse gases in cities, buildings, energy and transportation, Fitzgerald examines how greenovating cities are reducing emissions overall and lays out an agenda for fostering and implementing urban innovations that can help reverse the path toward irrevocable climate damage. Drawing on interviews with practitioners in more than 20 North American and European cities, she identifies the strategies and policies they are employing and how support from state, provincial and national governments has supported or thwarted their efforts. A uniquely urban-focused appraisal of the economic, political, and social debates that underpin the drive to "go green," Greenovation helps us understand what is arguably the toughest policy problem of our era: the increasing impact of anthropocentric climate change on modern social life.

How is religious conversion transforming American democracy? In one corner of Appalachia, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and through it Putin's New Russia. Historically a minority immigrant faith in the United States, Russian Orthodoxy is attracting Americans who look to Russian religion and politics for answers to Western secularism and the loss of traditional family values in the face of accelerating progressivism. This ethnography highlights an intentional community of converts who are exemplary of much broader networks of Russian Orthodox converts in the United States. These converts sought and found a conservatism more authentic than Christian American Republicanism and a nationalism unburdened by the broken promises of American exceptionalism. Ultimately, both converts and the Church that welcomes them deploy the subversive act of adopting the ideals and faith of a foreign power for larger, transnational political ends. Offering insights into this rarely considered religious world, including its far-right political roots that nourish the embrace of Putin's Russia, this ethnography shows how religious conversion is tied to larger issues of social politics, allegiance, (anti)democracy, and citizenship. These conversions offer us a window onto both global politics and foreign affairs, while also allowing us to see how particular U.S. communities are grappling with social transformations in the twenty-first century. With broad implications for our understanding of both conservative Christianity and right-wing politics, as well as contemporary Russian-American relations, this book provides insight in the growing constellations of far-right conservatism. While Russian Orthodox converts are more likely to form the moral minority rather than the moral majority, they are an important gauge for understanding the powerful philosophical shifts occurring in the current political climate in the United States and what they might mean for the future of American values, ideals, and democracy.

Rural life in Southeast Asia is being transformed by new and intensifying processes of migration and mobility. Migration out of rural areas creates new forms of class mobility, familial relations, production processes and income. Migration into rural areas creates a new and sometimes marginalized workforce, contestation over resource access, and the juxtaposition of culturally different groups. At the same time, everyday mobility stretches the spatial boundaries of village and family life. The bounded space of the village is no longer adequate to understand the dynamics that are driving (and resulting from) rural social change.

This collection of original studies explores the cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of intensifying migration and mobility in rural Southeast Asia at multiple scales. Diverse processes are explored including rural-urban flows, rural-rural movement, everyday mobilities, and international migrations into regional and global labour markets. Drawing on fieldwork in six countries across the region, these essays also explore what migration means for our understanding of class, citizenship, gender and the state in a rapidly changing part of the world.

This book was based on two parts of a special issue of Critical Asian Studies.

Shocked by a five-month arson spree that left a Virginia county reeling, reporter Monica Hesse drove to Accomack to cover the trial of Charlie Smith who pled guilty to 67 counts of arson. But Smith wasn't lighting fires alone: his crimes were galvanised by a twisted love story. Hesse uncovered the motives of this troubled addict and his accomplice, Tonya Bundick. In depicting the dangerous shift in their passionate relationship, Hesse brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, decimated by a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. Incorporating this drama into the history of arson in the US, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights of this quiet county lit up in flames, evoking a microcosm of rural America-a land gutted before the fires began.

Mobilizing for Development tackles the question of how countries achieve rural development and offers a new way of thinking about East Asia's political economy that challenges the developmental state paradigm. Through a comparison of Taiwan (1950s-1970s), South Korea (1950s-1970s), and China (1980s-2000s), Kristen E. Looney shows that different types of development outcomes-improvements in agricultural production, rural living standards, and the village environment-were realized to different degrees, at different times, and in different ways. She argues that rural modernization campaigns, defined as policies demanding high levels of mobilization to effect dramatic change, played a central role in the region and that divergent development outcomes can be attributed to the interplay between campaigns and institutions. The analysis departs from common portrayals of the developmental state as wholly technocratic and demonstrates that rural development was not just a byproduct of industrialization. Looney's research is based on several years of fieldwork in Asia and makes a unique contribution by systematically comparing China's development experience with other countries. Relevant to political science, economic history, rural sociology, and Asian Studies, the book enriches our understanding of state-led development and agrarian change.

This book explores the gender effects of the current transformation of agriculture and rural life. Five themes are addressed: developments in rural gender theory and research methodology, changes in farm households, migration patterns of men and women in rural areas, the impact of national and international policies, and the construction of identities and definitions of femininity and masculinity as a result of rural change. Contributors include scholars from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

This Complete revision of Dr. Shaffer's classic "Community Economics" provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of economic structure in small communities and urban neighborhoods of America. Authors Shaffer, Deller, and Marcouiller review the economics of smaller communities with continued emphasis on how to build and achieve theoretically sound community economic development policy. The text also demonstrates how local participation and knowledge can be used to identify problems, form solutions, and maintain community support for long-term goals.

The main body of economic research and literature has neglected the economics of smaller communities. "Community Economics: Linking Theory and Practice" fills that information void. This text serves as a comprehensive guide on smaller, open economies and urban neighborhoods for economists, regional planners, rural sociologists, and geographers. Additionally, "Community Economics" is an issue-oriented handbook of development strategies for development practitioners, planning and zoning officials, and others involved in the ay-to-day activities of community economic development.

The newest volume of the eclectic biannual anthology from the Greenhorns, a grassroots network for recruiting, promoting and supporting new American farmers The New Farmer's Almanac, Vol. V is an antidote to the repeating story of helplessness in the face of climo-politico-econo-corona-chaos. In these pages, dozens of contributing writers and artists report from the seas, the borders, the woods, the fields, and the hives. Farmers, poets, grocers, gardeners, architects, activists, agitators-all join forces to re-vision the future of food systems and land use. This is our Grand Land Plan. The solutions unfurl before us. First, recovery: farmers and food networks reflect on local resiliency and logistics from the time of COVID-19. Next, resistance: we invite readers to consider arguments for land reform, for the localization of food systems, for policy change in the forest and on the farm, for solidarity and sovereignty. We share reporting on restoration projects, from interstate roadsides to intertidal zones to our civic institutions. There are lessons from honeybees. Designs for the seaweed commons and for sanctuary. Together, these thinkers turn their-and our-attention to the long future. The New Farmer's Almanac is a large-scale inquiry-both visual and literary. Along with words, readers will find field maps, farm comics, photo essays, portraits and prints, pearls from the archives, and dozens of other curiosities. Join us in exploring principles and strategies for just, adaptive, resourceful, and responsive land use for all. Contributors to Vol. V include farmer activist Karen Washington; oyster whisperer and ecologist Anamarija Frankic; Elizabeth Hoover of Good Warrior Seeds; permaculturist and author Tao Orion; conservation scientist and author Lauren Oakes; and soil scientists, regenerative farmers, savanna restorationists, landscape architects, poets, printmakers, illustrators, and photographers from around the US and Earth.

This book presents a new perspective on attempts by the contemporary Chinese government to transform the diverse conditions found in countless rural villages into what the state's social welfare program deems 'socialist new villages'. Lili Lai argues that an ethnographic focus on the specifics of village life can help destabilize China's persistent rural-urban divide and help contribute to more effective welfare intervention to improve health and hygienic conditions of village life.

Cities are possibly the most dynamic and important administrative units today. Cities play big roles in addressing many of the complex challenges the world is facing today, including climate change, public health, and migration. This places pressure on public administration and the public sector, to do more with less, particularly at the local level where government services have the most direct impact on people's everyday lives as well as paradigmatic societal shifts associated with the rise of platform economies and new consumption patterns which transform public service delivery whilst changing public expectations. Co-creation and Smart Cities: Looking Beyond Technology highlights ways to meet these new demands with a more robust value-based perspective on public service development and delivery, specifically via co-creation. Co-creation is a way to plan, execute and evaluate public service design and delivery for contemporary cities, a valid means to support the 'balancing act' of promoting efficient and cost-effective governance. Built on insights gained through years of experience with and research on co-creation, as well as testimonials from practitioners, this volume presents collaborative and innovative solutions associated with smart city ideals, while continuing to develop a citizen-centric focus that is sustainable over time. Co-creation and Smart Cities helps structure co-creation processes that foster responsible innovation and a systemic, value-based approach to sustainable urban development. This title will be of interest to government officials, researchers and bottom-up communities looking to implement methods for co-creation within cities.

Religious Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo analyzes the contributions of three churches at both the leadership and the grassroots levels to conflict transformation in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. While states have long been considered main actors in addressing domestic conflicts, this book demonstrates that religious actors can play a significant role in peacebuilding efforts. In addition, rather than focusing exclusively on top-down approaches to conflict resolution, Religious Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo incorporates viewpoints from both leaders of the Catholic, 3eme Communaute Baptiste au Centre de l'Afrique and Arche de l'Alliance in Goma and grassroots members of these three churches.

Rural societies around the world are changing in fundamental ways, both at their own initiative and in response to external forces. The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies examines the organisation and transformation of rural society in more developed regions of the world, taking an interdisciplinary and problem-focused approach. Written by leading social scientists from many countries, it addresses emerging issues and challenges in innovative and provocative ways to inform future policy. This volume is organised around eight emerging social, economic and environmental challenges: Demographic change. Economic transformations. Food systems and land. Environment and resources. Changing configurations of gender and rural society. Social and economic equality. Social dynamics and institutional capacity. Power and governance. Cross-cutting these challenges are the growing interdependence of rural and urban; the rise in inequality within and between places; the impact of fiscal crisis on rural societies; neoliberalism, power and agency; and rural areas as potential sites of resistance. The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies is required reading for anyone concerned with the future of rural areas.

Long considered an urban phenomenon, industrialization also transformed the American countryside. Lou Martin weaves the narrative of how the relocation of steel and pottery factories to Hancock County, West Virginia, created a rural and small-town working class--and what that meant for communities and for labor. As Martin shows, access to land in and around steel and pottery towns allowed residents to preserve rural habits and culture. Workers in these places valued place and local community. Because of their belief in localism, an individualistic ethic of "making do," and company loyalty, they often worked to place limits on union influence. At the same time, this localism allowed workers to adapt to the dictates of industrial capitalism and a continually changing world on their own terms--and retain rural ways to a degree unknown among their urbanized peers. Throughout, Martin ties these themes to illuminating discussions of capital mobility, the ways in which changing work experiences defined gender roles, and the persistent myth that modernizing forces bulldozed docile local cultures. Revealing and incisive, Smokestacks in the Hills reappraises an overlooked stratum of American labor history and contributes to the ongoing dialogue on shifts in national politics in the postwar era.

Rural crime is a fast growing area of interest among scholars in criminology. From studies of agricultural crime in Australia, to violence against women in Appalachia America, to poaching in Uganda, to land theft in Brazil -- the criminology community has come to recognize that crime manifests itself in rural localities in ways that both conform to and challenge conventional theory and research. For the first time, Rural Criminology brings together contemporary research and conceptual considerations to synthesize rural crime studies from a critical perspective. This book dispels four rural crime myths, challenging conventional criminological theories about crime in general. It also examines both the historical development of rural crime scholarship, recent research and conceptual developments. The third chapter recreates the critical in the rural criminology literature through discussions of three important topics: community characteristics and rural crime, drug use, production and trafficking in the rural context, and agricultural crime. Never before has rural crime been examined comprehensively, using any kind of theoretical approach, whether critical or otherwise. Rural Criminology does both, pulling together in one short volume the diverse array of empirical research under the theoretical umbrella of a critical perspective. This book will be of interest to those studying or researching in the fields of rural crime, critical criminology and sociology.

Growing up gifted and working-class in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of learning as they navigated the challenges of their declining town and tumultuous family lives - broken marriages, shuttered stores and factories. They pored over the giant map in their classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape. In the end, Monica left Clinton for university and fulfilled her dreams. Darci, along with many in their circle of friends, did not. Years later, working as a journalist covering poverty, Monica discovered what she already intuitively knew about the women in Arkansas. Their life expectancy had steeply declined - the sharpest such fall in a century. She returned to Clinton to report the story, trying to understand the societal factors driving disturbing trends in the rural south. As she reconnects with Darci, she finds that her once talented and ambitious best friend is now a statistic: a single mother of two, addicted to meth and prescription drugs, jobless and nearly homeless. Deeply aware that Darci's fate could have been hers, she retraces the moments of decision and chance in each of their lives that led such similar women toward such different destinies. Why did Monica make it out while Darci became ensnared in a cycle of poverty and opioid abuse? Poignant and unforgettable, The Forgotten Girls is a story of coming of age as the American dream ends - and a new American classic.

In Language Online, David Barton and Carmen Lee investigate the impact of the online world on the study of language. The effects of language use in the digital world can be seen in every aspect of language study, and new ways of researching the field are needed. In this book the authors look at language online from a variety of perspectives, providing a solid theoretical grounding, an outline of key concepts, and practical guidance on doing research. Chapters cover topical issues including the relation between online language and multilingualism, identity, education and multimodality, then conclude by looking at how to carry out research into online language use. Throughout the book many examples are given, from a variety of digital platforms, and a number of different languages, including Chinese and English. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is a vital read for anyone new to studying online language and an essential textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates working in the areas of new media, literacy and multimodality within language and linguistics courses.

This book is about village governance in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on government archives from Huailu county, Ilebei province, this book explores the operational realities of local practices as well as institutionally imposed social control, land taxation, and self government at the village level. Its analysis of peasant behaviors bridges the gap between the rational choice and moral economy models by taking into account both material and symbolic dimensions of power and interest in the peasant community. The author's interpretation of village/state relations before 1900 transcends the state and society dichotomy and accentuates the interplay between formal and informal institutions and practices. His account of state making after 1900 underscores the continuity of endogenous arrangements in the course of institutional formalization and the interpenetration between official discourse and popular notions in the new process of political legitimization.