Rural people and communities continue to play important social, economic, and environmental roles at a time when societies are rapidly urbanizing. This unrivaled critical introduction, now in a comprehensively updated second edition, examines the causes and consequences of major social and economic transformations affecting rural populations in recent decades, explores policies developed to ameliorate problems or enhance opportunities, and highlights the resilience of rural people and communities. In an engaging, reader-friendly style, the book explores both socio-demographic and political economic aspects of rural transformation through an accessible and up-to-date blend of theory and empirical analysis, with each chapter's discussion grounded in real-life case-study materials. The new edition has been completely revised throughout, with new data and literature, and carefully updated to address emerging issues of direct relevance to rural people and places, including a whole new chapter on rural politics. Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century will continue to be the standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural sociology, community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development, and population studies.

This innovative resource offers a unique, multidisciplinary approach for the utilization of planning theory to eliminate health disparities in rural communities. The book provides tools in the public health, policy, and planning disciplines to help resolve significant differences in life expectancy and quality of life in these communities, concluding with a progressive vision for alleviating geographical health disparities on a local, national, and global scale. Chapters highlight models and approaches best suited to addressing this public health concern, suggesting action strategies focused around each of the three focus areas: 1. Public health: Elucidation of the contextual factors impacting the health of rural communities by: reporting statistical updates on a range of chronic and infectious diseases that disproportionately affect rural populations both globally and in the U.S.; providing discourse on the importance of addressing critical social determinants (global and national) that impede optimal health outcomes among rural populations; and, acknowledging the compositional factors of individuals who reside in rural spaces. 2. Public policy: Application of specific policy models to garner both public and political will towards sustainable policy change to improve healthy living in rural spaces. 3. Rural planning: Identification of national and international planning models that can be used to design strategic plans targeted to improve quality of life, create sustainable development, and establish economic well-being and growth in rural communities. Rural Health Disparities: Public Health, Policy, and Planning Approaches will find an engaged audience among non-profit organizations, planners, public health practitioners, policy analysts, and public interest groups, as well as rural health advocates and students enrolled in planning, public policy, and/or public health courses.

In this exploration of the meaning of home, Annie Zaidi reflects on the places in India from which she derives her sense of identity. She looks back on the now renamed city of her birth and the impossibility of belonging in the industrial township where she grew up. From her ancestral village, in a region notorious for its gangsters, to the mega-city where she now lives, Zaidi provides a nuanced perspective on forging a sense of belonging as a minority and a migrant in places where other communities consider you an outsider, and of the fragility of home left behind and changed beyond recognition. Zaidi is the 2019/ 2020 winner of the Nine Dots Prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary social issues. This title is also available as Open Access.

This volume combines two classic works of anthropology. "The Little Community" draws on the author's own notable studies of the villages of Tepoztlan and Chan Kom to explore the means by which scientists try to understand human communities. It contains, wrote Margaret Mead, "the essence of Robert Redfield's multifaceted contributions to the place of community studies in social science." "Peasant Society and Culture "outlines a speculative foundation for the emergence of anthropology from the study of isolated primitive tribes.

Oscillations in opium poppy production in Afghanistan have long been associated with how the state was perceived, such as after the Taliban imposed a cultivation ban in 2000-1.The international community's subsequent attempts to regulate opium poppy became intimately linked with its own state-building project, and rising levels of cultivation were cited as evidence of failure by those international donors who spearheaded development in poppy-growing provinces like Helmand, Nangarhar and Kandahar.Mansfield's book examines why drug control - particularly opium bans - have been imposed in Afghanistan; he documents the actors involved; and he scrutinises how prohibition served divergent and competing interests. Drawing on almost two decades of fieldwork in rural areas, he explains how these bans affected farming communities, and how prohibition endured in some areas while in others opium production bans undermined livelihoods and destabilised the political order, fuelling violence and rural rebellion.Above all this book challenges how we have come to understand political power in rural Afghanistan. Far from being the passive recipients of violence by state and non-state actors, Mansfield highlights the role that rural communities have played in shaping the political terrain, including establishing the conditions under which they could persist with opium production.

Punishing Places applies a unique spatial analysis to mass incarceration in the United States. It demonstrates that our highest imprisonment rates are now in small cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Jessica Simes argues that mass incarceration should be conceptualized as one of the legacies of U.S. racial residential segregation, but that a focus on large cities has diverted vital scholarly and policy attention away from communities affected most by mass incarceration today. This book presents novel measures for estimating the community-level effects of incarceration using spatial, quantitative, and qualitative methods. This analysis has broad and urgent implications for policy reforms aimed at ameliorating the community effects of mass incarceration and promoting alternatives to the carceral system.

The South African government has prioritized a reduction of poverty and increased food security in rural parts of South Africa through agrarian transformation. As the bearers and beneficiaries of rural development initiatives, smallholder farmers, including those keeping livestock, loom large in this arena. Likewise, on international development agendas steered by bodies such as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), smallholders are prioritized as the engines of national economies. This book, based on a pilot study of two livestock keeping communities along the Mpumalanga-Limpopo border, explores smallholder households in order to paint a picture of the challenges faced by smallholder livestock farmers, the practices and knowledge of primary animal healthcare (PAHC) among these farmers, relationships between the state and the smallholders, gendered issues, and the relationship between poor socioeconomic conditions and the keeping of livestock. This book opens up a variety of research and policy questions that encourage further exploration and study.

With an introduction by Robert Plant Against an unflinching backdrop of 90s reservation life in the western Dakotas, Neither Wolf Nor Dog tells the story of two men, one white and one Native American Indian, connected by their own understandings of life yet struggling to find a common voice. As they journey together through small Native American Indian towns and down forgotten roads where the whisperings of the wind speak of ancestral voices, these two men will travel beyond myth and stereotype, revealing an America few people ever get to see.

The outbreak of organised, violent peasant protests across the Chinese countryside from the late 1990s to the early 2000s has attracted much scholarly interest. In this study, An Chen endeavours to understand from these protests the question of the Chinese government's control in the countryside and the impact of this violent resistance on China's rural governance in the context of market liberalisation. Utilising extensive field research and data collected from surveys across rural China, the book provides an in-depth exploration of how rural governance in China has been transformed following two major tax reforms: the tax-for-fee reform of 2002-4, and the abolition of agricultural taxes (AAT) in 2005-6. In a multidimensional analysis which combines approaches from political science, economics, finance and sociology, Chen argues that private economic power has merged with political power in a way that has reshaped village governance in China, threatening to fundamentally change its political structure.

An exploration of how key provinces in China shape urban and regional development The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and social tensions. Wary of these dangers, China's national leaders have tried to forestall top-heavy urbanization. However, urban and regional development policies at the subnational level have not always followed suit. China's Urban Champions explores the development paths of different provinces and asks why policymakers in many cases favor big cities in a way that reinforces spatial inequalities rather than reducing them. Kyle Jaros combines in-depth case studies of Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu provinces with quantitative analysis to shed light on the political drivers of uneven development. Drawing on numerous Chinese-language written sources, including government documents and media reports, as well as a wealth of field interviews with officials, policy experts, urban planners, academics, and businesspeople, Jaros shows how provincial development strategies are shaped by both the horizontal relations of competition among different provinces and the vertical relations among different tiers of government. Metropolitan-oriented development strategies advance when lagging economic performance leads provincial leaders to fixate on boosting regional competitiveness, and when provincial governments have the political strength to impose their policy priorities over the objections of other actors. Rethinking the politics of spatial policy in an era of booming growth, China's Urban Champions highlights the key role of provincial units in determining the nation's metropolitan and regional development trajectory.

Reinventing Rural is a collection of original research papers that examine the ways in which rural people and places are changing in the context of an urbanizing world. This includes exploring the role of the environment, the economy, and related issues such as tourism. While traditionally relying on primary sector work in agriculture, mining, natural resources, and the like, rural areas are finding new ways to sustain themselves. This involves a new emphasis on environmental protection, as one important strategy has been to capitalize on natural amenities to attract residents and tourists. Beyond improvements to the economy are general improvements to the quality-of-life in rural communities. Consistent with this, the volume focuses on the two cornerstones of education and health, considering current challenges and offering ideas for reinventing rural quality-of-life.

The economic and political rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and Middle-Income Countries (MICs) have important implications for global agrarian transformation.These emerging economies are undergoing profound changes as key sites of the production, circulation, and consumption of agricultural commodities; hosts to abundant cheap labour and natural resources; and home to growing numbers of both poor but also, increasingly, affluent consumers. Separately and together these countries are shaping international development agendas both as partners in and potential alternatives to the development paradigms promoted by the established hubs of global capital in the North Atlantic and by dominant international financial institutions. Collectively, the chapters in this book show the significance of BRICS countries in reshaping agro-food systems at the national and regional level as well as their global significance. As they export their own farming and production systems across different contexts, though, the outcomes are contingent and success is not assured. At the same time, BRICS may represent a continuation rather than an alternative to the development paradigms of the Global North. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal.

Pentecostalism-Africa's fastest growing form of Christianity-is known for displacing that which came before. Yet anthropologist Devaka Premawardhana witnessed neither massive growth nor dramatic rupture in the part of Mozambique where he worked. His research opens a new paradigm for the study of global Christianity, one centered on religious fluidity and existential mobility, and on how indigenous traditions remain vibrant and influential-even in the lives of converts. In Faith in Flux, Premawardhana narrates a range of everyday hardships faced by a rural Makhuwa-speaking people-snakebites and elephant invasions, chronic illnesses and recurring wars, disputes within families and conflicts with the state-to explore how wellbeing sometimes entails not stability but mobility. In their ambivalent response to Pentecostalism, as in their historical resistance to sedentarization and other modernizing projects, the Makhuwa reveal crucial insights about what it is to be human: about changing as a means of enduring, becoming as a mode of being, and converting as a way of life.

This book discusses the forms and dynamics of political processes in rural India with a special emphasis on West Bengal, the nation's fourth-most populous state. West Bengal's political distinction stems from its long legacy of a Left-led coalition government for more than thirty years and its land reform initiatives. The book closely looks at how people from different castes, religions, and genders represent themselves in local governments, political parties, and in the social movements in West Bengal. At the same time it addresses some important questions: Is there any new pattern of politics emerging at the margins? How does this pattern of politics correspond with the current discourse of governance? Using ethnographic techniques, it claims to chart new territories by not only examining how rural people see the state, but also conceiving the context by comparing the available theoretical frameworks put forward to explain the political dynamics of rural India.

This book shares research and practice on current trends in digital technology for agricultural and rural development in the Global South. Growth of research in this field has been slower than the pace of change for practitioners, particularly in bringing socio-technical views of information technology and agricultural development perspectives together. The contents are therefore structured around three main themes: sharing information and knowledge for agricultural development, information and knowledge intermediaries, and facilitating change in agricultural systems and settings. The book includes: -Views from diverse academic disciplines as well as practitioners with experience of implementing mobile applications and agriculture information systems in differing country contexts. -Case studies from a range of developing countries and information from across the public and private sector. -A set of practitioner guidelines for successful implementation of digital technologies. With contributions reaching beyond just a technological perspective, the book also provides a consideration of social and cultural factors and new forms of organization and institutional change in agricultural and rural settings. An invaluable read for researchers in international development, socio-economics and agriculture, it forms a useful resource for practitioners working in the area.

This study addresses the role of agricultural policies in raising incomes in developing countries. Higher incomes are essential for sustained progress on the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1), which calls for the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, and includes a specific target of reducing by 50% between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day. The aim is to identify ways in which the appropriate set of policies may vary according to a country's stage of development. A synthesis volume will also be published for policy makers. With more than two-thirds of the world's poor living in rural areas, higher rural incomes are needed to sustain poverty reduction and reduce hunger. This volume sets out a strategy for raising rural incomes which emphasises the need to create diversified rural economies with opportunities within and outside agriculture. This means adopting policies that facilitate rather than impede structural change and integrate agricultural policies within the overall mix of policies and institutional reforms that are needed. By investing in public goods, such as infrastructure and agricultural research, and by building effective social safety nets, governments can reduce the pressures related to less efficient policies such as price controls and input subsidies.

Written by leading academics and practitioners in the field, Smart Villages in the EU and Beyond offers a detailed insight into issues and developments that shape the debate on smart villages, together with concepts, developments and policymaking initiatives including the EU Action for Smart Villages. This book derives from the realization that the implications of the increasing depopulation of rural areas across the EU is a pending disaster. This edited collection establishes a framework for action today, which will lead to sustainable revitalization of rural areas tomorrow. Using country-specific case studies, the chapters examine how integrated and ICT-conscious strategies and policy actions focused on wellbeing, sustainability and solidarity could provide a long-term solution in the revitalization of villages across the EU and elsewhere. Best practices pertinent to precision farming, energy diversification, tourism, entrepreneurship are discussed in detail. As an in-depth exploration of the Smart Village on a multinational scale, this book will serve as an indispensable resource for students, researchers and policy leaders in the fields of politics, strategic management and urban and rural studies.

This book consists of selected and revised papers from a conference held in North Carolina that brought together rural geographers from Canada, UK and USA, plus one representative from New Zealand. The papers included in the book are those that focus on agricultural restructuring and sustainability. This subject is of considerable current interest at a time when rural areas in developed market economies are undergoing considerable change. The chapters in the book examine, at various spatial scales, the broad processes and structural changes that are common to all rural systems in developed countries. Different geographical contexts are used to illustrate the uneven development of these processes and the implications for sustainable agriculture and rural systems. Authors provide both literature reviews and original research. The book is aimed at not only rural geographers but also agricultural economists, rural sociologists and policy-makers concerned with rural studies.

Rapid urbanisation, inequalities in income and service levels within and between communities, and population and economic decline are challenging the viability of rural communities worldwide. Achieving healthy and viable rural communities in the face of rapidly changing social, ecological and economic conditions is a declared global priority. As a result, governments all over the world, in both developed and developing countries, are now prioritizing rural and regional development through policies and programs aimed at enhancing the livelihoods of people living in rural regions. In recognition of the important roles that research can play in rural development, a range of systematic literature reviews have rightly examined key priorities in rural development including education, gender, economic development (especially agriculture), and health and nutrition (see Department for International Development [DFID], 2011). However, none of these works has systematically examined the extent to which rural development as a field of research is progressing towards facilitating sustainable change. This book evaluates trends in rural development research across the five continental regions of the world. Specifically, it assesses the total publication output relating to rural development, the types of publications, their quality and impact over the last three decades. Additionally, it evaluates the continental origins of the publications as well as the extent to which such publications engage with issues of sustainability. The aim is to determine whether the rural development field is growing in a manner that reflects research and policy priorities and broader social trends such as sustainability. Development policy makers, practitioners, those teaching research methods and systematic literature reviews to undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers in general will find the book both topical and highly relevant.

Development studies in developing regions such as Southern Africa rely heavily on materials developed by Europeans with a European context. European dominance in development studies emanates from the fact that the discipline was first developed by Europeans. Some argue that this has led to distortions in theory and practice of development in Southern Africa. This book wishes to begin Africa's expedition to develop proper material to de-Westernize while Africanizing the context of the scholarship of rural development. African Perspectives on Reshaping Rural Development is an essential reference source that repositions the context of rural development studies from the Western-centric knowledge system into an African context in order to solve African-centered problems. Featuring research on topics such as food security, poverty reduction, and community engagement, this book is ideally designed for planners, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, government officials, academicians, and students seeking clarity on theory and practice of development in Africa.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the 'small politics' of rural communities in the Late Roman world. It places the diverse fates of those communities within a generalized model for exploring rural social systems. Fundamentally, social interactions in rural contexts in the period revolved around the desire of individual households to insure themselves against catastrophic subsistence failure and the need of the communities in which they lived to manage the attendant social tensions, inequalities and conflicts. A focus upon the politics of reputation in those communities provides a striking contrast to the picture painted by the legislation and the writings of Rome's literate elite: when viewed from the point of view of the peasantry, issues such as the Christianization of the countryside, the emergence of new types of patronage relations, and the effects of the new system of taxation upon rural social structures take on a different aspect.

The outbreak of organised, violent peasant protests across the Chinese countryside from the late 1990s to the early 2000s has attracted much scholarly interest. In this study, An Chen endeavours to understand from these protests the question of the Chinese government's control in the countryside and the impact of this violent resistance on China's rural governance in the context of market liberalisation. Utilising extensive field research and data collected from surveys across rural China, the book provides an in-depth exploration of how rural governance in China has been transformed following two major tax reforms: the tax-for-fee reform of 2002-4, and the abolition of agricultural taxes (AAT) in 2005-6. In a multidimensional analysis which combines approaches from political science, economics, finance and sociology, Chen argues that private economic power has merged with political power in a way that has reshaped village governance in China, threatening to fundamentally change its political structure.