The local doctor occupies a privileged position in society. Pillars of the community and privy to the most intimate details of people's lives, we often imbue them with superhuman qualities and expect them to have all the answers. Rarely do we get to see the person behind the ever-calm, professional exterior and experience how they handle the weight of responsibility that comes with the role. Step into the surgery of Dr. Lucia Gannon. Arriving in the small village of Killenaule, Co. Tipperary 20 years ago - husband Liam (also a GP) and children in tow - Gannon was a blow-in determined to build a practice that would provide solace for the sick, worried and confused. Journey with her as she builds a life in this tight-knit community, and discover what it means to be the one people bring their problems to - problems that are not always medical, but which still require discretion, kindness and the willingness to provide a listening ear to those on the tricky journey of life.

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.

* Examines the flaws in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and proposes remedies for many locations and circumstances* Shows how CBNRM can be central to sustainable development and the conservation of biodiversity * Presents a wealth of case studies from southern Africa - the crucible of CBNRM developmentCommunity-based natural resource management (CBNRM) refers to rural people managing and using natural resources to enhance their livelihoods. It is widely recognized that much of the Earth's biodiversity is managed in this way, and that local communities can, and must, contribute to conserving biodiversity without sacrificing their access to natural resources.Observers and practitioners have focused on how CBNRM can be employed in sustainable development programs as a means to overcome poverty in various parts of the globe. Recently, however, the CBNRM concept has been criticized because many of these programs have not yet had major positive impacts on improved rural livelihoods or conservation of biodiversity. This book identifies and analyzes the flaws, which are often swept under the carpet by those involved in CBNRM initiatives, and proposes remedies for a variety of circumstances based on lessons learned in southern Africa over the past decade.

This volume is based on papers from the second in a series of three conferences that deal with the multi-scalar processes of heritage-making, ranging from the local to the national and international levels, involving different players with different degrees of agency and interests. These players include citizens and civil society, the state, and international organizations and actors. The current volume focuses on the role of citizens and civil society in the politics of heritage-making, looking at how these players at the grass-roots level make sense of the past in the present. Who are these local players that seek to define the meaning of heritage in their everyday lives? How do they negotiate with the state, or contest the influence of the state, in determining what their heritage is? These and other questions will be taken up in various Asian contexts in this volume to foreground the local dynamics of heritage politics.

The metropolis has been the near exclusive focus of queer scholars and queer cultures in America. Asking us to look beyond the cities on the coasts, Scott Herring draws a new map, tracking how rural queers have responded to this myopic mindset. Interweaving a wide range of disciplines--art, media, literature, performance, and fashion studies--he develops an extended critique of how metronormativity saturates LGBTQ politics, artwork, and criticism. To counter this ideal, he offers a vibrant theory of queer anti-urbanism that refuses to dismiss the rural as a cultural backwater.

Impassioned and provocative, Another Country expands the possibilities of queer studies beyond its city limits. Herring leads his readers from faeries in the rural Midwest to photographs of white supremacists in the deep South, from Roland Barthes's obsession with Parisian fashion to a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel set in the Appalachian Mountains, and from cubist paintings in Lancaster County to lesbian separatist communes on the northern California coast. The result is an entirely original account of how queer studies can--and should--get to another country.

PEGGY O'BRIEN grew up in western Massachusetts, where she now lives with her husband. She teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, she moved to Ireland and studied at University College Dublin and Trinity College, where she taught for the better part of twenty years. Her poems have appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Yale Review, The Southwest Review and Poetry Ireland Review. As well as being the editor of The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry 1967-2000, she is the author of Writing Lough Derg: from Carleton to Heaney. She travels often in Ireland, where she has a daughter and three granddaughters.

The growth of rural industry in China since 1978 has been explosive. Much of the existing literature explains its growth in terms of changes in economic policy. By means of a combination of privatization, liberalization and fiscal decentralization, it is argued, rural industrialization has taken off. This book takes issue with such claims. Using a newly constructed dataset covering all of China's 2000 plus counties and complemented by a detailed econometric study of county-level industrialization in the provinces of Sichuan, Guangdong and Jiangsu, the author demonstrates that history mattered. More precisely, it is argued that the development of rural industry in the Maoist period set in motion a process of learning-by-doing whereby China's rural workforce gradually acquired an array of skills and competencies. As a result, rural industrialization was accelerating well before the 1978 climacteric. The growth of the 1980s and 1990s is therefore likely to be a continuation of this process. Without prior Maoist development of skills, the growth of the post-1978 era would have been much slower, and perhaps would not have occurred at all - as has been the case in countries such as India and Vietnam. This is not to say that the Maoist legacy was without flaw. Many of the rural industries created under Mao were geared towards meeting defence-related objectives resulting in inefficiencies, and there can be no question that post-1978 policy changes facilitated the growth process. But without the Maoist inheritance, rural industrialization across China would have been unsuccessful.

In the Caribbean, poverty is the other side of paradise. Economic hardship and social exclusion coexist with idyllic beaches and picturesque scenes of island life, and poor communities, both rural and urban, with substandard living conditions and a lack of access to basic services, belie the story often sold in tourist brochures. In Poverty is a Person, Theresa Ann Rajack-Talley, in a participatory approach to development studies, raises the voices of those usually muted in poverty research. The people-centred approach forces a questioning of statistical data on poverty and how that data is used to craft responses and solutions to meeting the needs of the most marginalized persons in Caribbean societies. The book provides a synopsis of poverty from a ""people perspective"" and is supported by case studies of households and communities. The lack of humanity in traditional poverty studies is brought to the fore and in particular, the gender dimension of poverty - what it is that women do on a daily basis to survive and provide for their families. Rajck-Talley, in a refreshing take on research and development, highlights how social inclusion can influence positive change and improvement and how the employment of social capital can be harnessed as an important element in poverty reduction. In pulling together an understanding of social exclusion, women's roles in negotiating poverty, and the role of human agency generally, Poverty is a Person highlights the need to remove the prohibitive parameters of traditional poverty studies and suggests a paradigm shift in the approach of Caribbean countries to employ a more effective and targeted approach to the multidimensional facets of poverty.

Resourcing Rural Ministry offers an in-depth exploration of the key aspects, challenges and opportunities of mission in a rural church. Relevant for ordained and lay leaders alike, the book covers subjects ranging from encouraging evangelism in a multi-church group to making best use of church buildings. Containing a wealth of real-life case studies and suggestions for follow-up, this ecumenical publication draws on the expertise and resources of the Arthur Rank Centre (ARC), which has served the spiritual and practical needs of the rural Christian community for over 40 years. This book contributes to ARC's Germinate programme of training, development and support for rural multi-church groups of all denominations. Resourcing Rural Ministry was first developed by Simon Martin as Training and Resources Officer at the ARC. Additional chapters have been contributed by the Revd Caroline Hewlett, Rona Orme and Becky Payne and the final text has been prepared and edited by Jill Hopkinson. 'This book is packed with helpful resources and background theology that will aid the rural church to be a vibrant and relevant presence in today's society.' Revd Peter Ball, Mission and Training Officer, Eastern Synod of the URC 'Read these contributions and you'll be excited by a wealth of experience, insight and resource.' Rt Revd James Bell, Bishop of Ripon

The Palestinian Muslim village of Artas is cradled in the lap of four mountains in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Although Artas has experienced the violence of Israeli occupation, Spirits of Palestine does not focus exclusively on the villagers' experiences of violence, terrorism, or loss. This ethnography looks instead at the daily lives of Palestinian women and men and how they relate to tragedies and difficulties both large and small. Through stories of possession by the jinn, spirits that appear throughout the Koran, anthropologist Celia Rothenberg takes the reader past the dramatic, violent world of street battles and stone-throwing to more intimate realms of power--in homes and prisons, family and neighborhood relations, and personal experiences of migration and diaspora. Rothenberg shows how remarkably far-reaching jinn stories can be; they provide commentary on the constructed nature of kinship, strong social mores, and those who are both on the margins and at the center of a Palestinian community. Jinn stories remind us that power in all its forms has gaps and inconsistencies. Spirits of Palestine is a truly original ethnography and an essential addition to scholarship on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East that will be of interest to cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and women's/gender studies scholars.

For seven years in the 1970s, the author lived in a village in northeast China as an ordinary farmer. In 1989, he returned to the village as an anthropologist to begin the unparalleled span of eleven years' fieldwork that has resulted in this book-a comprehensive, vivid, and nuanced account of family change and the transformation of private life in rural China from 1949 to 1999. The author's focus on the personal and the emotional sets this book apart from most studies of the Chinese family. Yan explores private lives to examine areas of family life that have been largely overlooked, such as emotion, desire, intimacy, privacy, conjugality, and individuality. He concludes that the past five decades have witnessed a dual transformation of private life: the rise of the private family, within which the private lives of individual women and men are thriving.

Rich in historical perspective on women and men in the context of economic development, this ethnography provides a unique window on rural China since the 1930s. Laurel Bossen uses her detailed knowledge to explore theories regarding such momentous changes as the demise of footbinding, the transformation and feminization of farming, the rise of family planning, and the question of missing daughters. Based on anthropological research conducted during the 1990s in Lu Village and informed by the classic 1930s study of the same village by Fei Xiaotong, China's most famous anthropologist, Chinese Women and Rural Development goes beyond the enduring myths and cardboard images of women as either victims or heroes. Highlighting women's work in a complex farming economy and their choices in marriage and family, the book portrays individuals confronting a variety of changes, ranging from drastic to gradual, in their daily lives. Bossen examines the economic, social, and political practices both upholding and altering the boundaries of gender in the face of shifting state and market forces over time. Throughout, Lu Village women defy stereotypes, yet their stories, rooted in the reality of Yunnan province, express the commonalities and continuities of gender in rural China.

Under its program of land investments, the Ethiopian government has leased out huge tracts of land to domestic and foreign investors on terms that are highly favorable to both but particularly to foreign ones. Critical reports on the bonanza reaped by foreign capital have appeared in the world media and the websites of international activist organizations, and while some of these are based on questionable evidence, the global attention they have drawn may well be deserved given the image of the country as a land of poverty and hunger. This study, which is based on information gathered from field interviews as well as other sources, looks at the subject from a land rights perspective, with emphasis on the relations of power between small land-users and their communities on the one hand and the state on the other. At bottom what is at stake is the land and the resources on it, and what is being grabbed are rights that in most cases belong to peasant farmers, pastoralists and their communities. In the long run, the shift of agrarian system from small-scale to large-scale, foreign dominated production -which is what the investment program is now doing- will marginalize small producers, and cause immense damage to local ecosystems, wildlife habitats and biodiversity.

In this book Geert Mak returns to the small Frisian village of his childhood, Jorwert (pop. 330 and falling). It's a typical European village where the shops are closing down, the few children left will escape to a less arduous life in the city and it's becoming increasingly isolated. Jowert has more in common with an English village than with Amsterdam, and it's moving story of neighbours and their efforts to preserve their long established way of life is relevant to the changing face of the countryside everywhere in Europe.

Throughout the world people are concerned about the demise of tropical forests and their wildlife. Hunting by forest-dwelling people has a dramatic effect on wildlife in many tropical forests, frequently driving species to local extinction, with devastating implications for other species and the health of the forests themselves. But wildlife is an important source of protein and cash for rural peoples. Can hunting be managed to conserve biological communities while meeting human needs? Are hunting rates as practiced by tropical forest peoples sustainable? If not, what are the biological, social, and cultural implications of this failure? Answering these questions is ever more important as national and international agencies seek to integrate the development of local peoples with the conservation of tropical forest systems and species.

This book presents a wide array of studies that examine the sustainability of hunting as practiced by rural peoples. Comprising work by both biological and social scientists, "Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests" provides a balanced viewpoint on the ecological and human aspects of this hunting. The first section examines the effects of hunting on wildlife in tropical forests throughout the world. The next section looks at the importance of hunting to local communities. The third section looks at institutional challenges of resource management, while the fourth draws on economic perspectives to understand both hunting and sustainability. A final section provides synthesis and summary of the factors that influence sustainability and the implications for management.

Drawing on examples from Ecuador to Congo-Zaire to Sulawesi, "Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests" will be a valuable resource to policymakers, conservation organizations, and students and scholars of biology, ecology, and anthropology.

After twenty-five years police service on urban Tyneside, the author-a social anthropologist-transferred, on promotion as Superintendent, to West Mercia Constabulary. The arrival of this 'import' coincided with monetarist demands for efficiency and effectiveness, a political thrust which came hard up against rural ideas of hierarchy, paternalism, and a cultural belief that denied validity to outsiders - such as those in the adjacent West Midlands Police. Detailing the way West Mercia operated and justified some bizarre practices, the ethnography shows how cultural identity was defined and deployed on a daily basis and explores the diverse and rich cultural baggage the rural world sustained even in the face of intense calls for the management of change. Reflecting on the lack of financial control he found, the author links all this to the racism he observed-to a xenophobic means of maintaining social boundaries, defending edgy environments and preserving a semi-closed culture from the intrusions of outsiders.

England has a housing crisis. We need to build many more new homes to house our growing population, but house building is controversial, particularly when it involves the loss of countryside. Addressing both sides of this critical debate, Shaun Spiers argues that to drive house building on the scale needed, government must strike a contract with civil society: in return for public support and acceptance of the loss of some countryside, it must guarantee high quality, affordable developments, in the right locations. Simply imposing development, as recent governments of all political persuasions have attempted, will not work. Focusing on house building and conservation politics in England, Spiers uses his considerable experience and extensive research to demonstrate why the current model doesn't work, and why there needs to be both planning reform and a more active role for the state, including local government.

This is a book that challenges contemporary images of 'place'. Too often we are told about 'deprived neighbourhoods' but rarely do the people who live in those communities get to shape the agenda and describe, from their perspective, what is important to them. In this unique book the process of re-imagining comes to the fore in a fresh and contemporary look at one UK town, Rotherham. Using history, artistic practice, writing, poetry, autobiography and collaborative ethnography, this book literally and figuratively re-imagines a place. It is a manifesto for alternative visions of community, located in histories and cultural reference points that often remain unheard within the mainstream media. As such, the book presents a 'how to' for researchers interested in community collaborative research and accessing alternative ways of knowing and voices in marginalised communities.

"Narrative of the Village: Centre of the Periphery attempts to dismantle the polarities of centre and margin and substantiate the way they interconnect and flow into each other across all differences of region and language. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, the essays in this volume foray into sociological, political, economic and narratological issues in order to fathom the rural life of India. Landscapes, histories and folk culture interact with each other to affect both narrative constructs and power-structures. The period covered by the essays spans nearly a hundred years and traces the history of India from the early decades through the dislocations of the partition right up to the present in an attempt to recapture the past, relocate priorities, recover lost myths and unveil the process of nation construction. The preoccupation with village India has been a constant concern with writers and film-makers from all regions and languages. Premchand, Sarat Chandra, Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee, Buddhadev Guha, Khushwant Singh, Krishna Sobti, Rahi Masoom Reza, Kamala Markandeya, Ashis Gupta, Phaneshwar Nath Renu, Thakazi Shankar Pillai, Thapil Mohammed Meeran, Sharan Kumar Limbale, O.V. Vijayan and David Davidar being only some of them.The kaleidoscopic nature of village life has always been a part of the nations imagination. The essays in this volume, open out the narrative of the subcontinental village to look at it anew in all its complexities and sociological concerns, to unfold a multi-layered reality."

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.

Afghanistan in the 20th century was virtually unknown in Europe and America. At peace until the 1970s, the country was seen as a remote and exotic land, visited only by adventurous tourists or researchers. Afghan Village Voices is a testament to this little-known period of peace and captures a society and culture now lost. Prepared by two of the most accomplished and well-known anthropologists of the Middle East and Central Asia, Richard Tapper and Nancy Tapper-Lindisfarne, this is a book of stories told by the Piruzai, a rural Afghan community of some 200 families who farmed in northern Afghanistan and in summer took their flocks to the central Hazarajat mountains. The book comprises a collection of remarkable stories, folktales and conversations and provides unprecedented insight into the depth and colour of these people's lives. Recorded in the early 1970s, the stories range from memories of the Piruzai migration to the north a half century before, to the feuds, ethnic strife and the doings of powerful khans. There are also stories of falling in love, elopements, marriages, childbirth and the world of spirits. The book includes vignettes of the narrators, photographs, maps and a full glossary. It is a remarkable document of Afghanistan at peace, told by a people whose voices have rarely been heard.