Providing a critical look at how it is possible for institutions of higher education to go beyond the institutional constraints that plague the neo-liberal university, the authors of this volume explore the powerful role of transformative university-based research and education. An emerging global network of concerned teachers and researchers who are currently engaged in dialogue with civil society and social movements, seek to construct another possible post-pandemic world built on premises of democracy, justice and peace. The emphasis on transformation points to alternative ways of doing research and education, associated with critical pedagogics and participatory action-research. This approach entails an intentionality to intervene in the debate and actual modus operandi of university research and education. It seeks to replace the existing vertical division of labour between administrators, teachers and students with an alternative collaborative organization of the production and transmission of knowledge, conducted by co-researchers and co-learners.

Democracy is back, at least as a topic of concern among rural sociologists. The Neoliberal cast of the recent pursuit of globalization in world politics has led to the development of a wide range of critiques united by the same question: what about democracy? From this perspective, the main issue with globalization is the globalization of what - the market or the policy, the citizen as consumer or the citizen as citizen. This volume brings together some of the recent work of rural sociologists on democracy, in an effort to bring into sharper focus this work's distinctive contributions to the understanding the question of what is and should be globalized, with particular emphasis on rural concerns and rural people. Half the world still lives in rural areas, and the entire world depends upon the success of rural areas in providing the means for human subsistence. The impact of globalization on rural democratization thus has implications for everyone. The volume has three sections. The first draws together a range of theoretical work on rural democratization. The second explores processes of rural democratization in the rich countries of the world. The third investigates the distinctive manifestations of rural democratization efforts in the poor countries.