Rural communities / rural life Books
Duke University Press Porkopolis
Book SynopsisAlex Blanchette explores how the daily lives of a Midwestern town that is home to a massive pork complex were reorganized around the life and death cycles of pigs while using the factory farm as a way to detail the state of contemporary American industrial capitalism.Trade Review“Porkopolis is a rigorous and insightful ethnography of food production that connects the politics of labor to ambitious theorizations of political economy and biopolitical governance. Beautifully written and highly accessible, Porkopolis is a field-defining work in animal studies, the anthropology of labor, and food studies. An outstanding book.” -- Gabriel N. Rosenberg, author of * The 4-H Harvest: Sexuality and the State in Rural America *“In Porkopolis, the industrial pig is not just vertically integrated; it is pervasive, conditioning hog and human bodies and saturating workers' social lives and living spaces. Exquisitely researched and indelibly written, Alex Blanchette's arresting ethnography challenges us to see industrial meat as a new biopolitical regime, the next chapter in capitalism's quest to dominate nature by standardizing life.” -- Heather Paxson, author of * The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America *“As a human-animal researcher, I found this book exciting in its examination of how labor and class shapes human nonhuman entanglement in the industrial setting, and the novel employment of multispecies sensibilities to offer an alternative perspective on the factory farm. Porkopolis might also be read as a twenty-first century world-making process of domestication, radically co-shaping environments, pigs, humans, and other species in the process.” -- Paul G. Keil * Anthropology Book Forum *"What is remarkable about Porkopolis is that Blanchette never makes the predictable point but instead uses his thorough ethnography to question many of the taken-for-granted assumptions both popular media and the scholarly literature have made about factory farms. In the process, he has generated the beginning steps toward a new approach toward understanding the relations between industrial forms of capitalism and nature." -- Ilana Gershon * Current Anthropology *"The clarity and analytical power of Porkopolis are impressive achievements. . . . It is not surprising to learn that Blanchette’s peers consider him one of the finest ethnographers of his generation. The book is crafted with a perspicacity and empathy reminiscent of Munro’s short stories." -- Troy Vettese * Boston Review *"An even-handed exploration of an issue usually dominated by extremes. . . . That said, even Blanchette’s moral generosity and even-handed treatment of the pork industry cannot powder and perfume the everyday horrors contained within. . . . Blanchette may not have set out to write an argument for de-industrializing pigs, but he achieved it." -- Jennifer Graham * The Hippo *"The book obliges the thoughtful reader to ponder how this remarkable departure from normal biological life could ever have come about—all for the sake of cheap meat and profit—and what we might need to do (if ever we could) about changing it. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals." -- J. A. Mather * Choice *“Porkopolis is very well written, powerful, and provocative and is an exceptionally insightful look at industrial capitalism through the lens of human–animal relations. It offers a truly unique perspective into the world that industrial farming has made and remade.” -- Steve Striffler * American Anthropologist *“Porkopolis is a triumph. It is exceptionally readable and engaging in spite of the gravity of its subject matter. It is also creative and challenging in the most haunting and curious ways.” -- Claire Bunschoten * Social Text *“Blanchette’s ethnography ... demonstrates the ways in which the modern pork industry has reshaped the rural American workforce as well as economic and social relationships.... Porkopolis is a masterful piece of multi-sited research.” -- Jon Wolseth * American Ethnologist *“Alex Blanchette’s Porkopolis is an incredible ethnographic achievement.... The book’s commitment to an ambitious theoretical project, its inviting prose that balances precision and readability, and its sharply described ethnographic insights all work flawlessly.” -- Andrea Rissing and Nicholas C. Kawa * Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment *“There are many angles from which to approach Alex Blanchette’s sweeping, paradigm defining and redefining, and prescient ethnography.... Porkopolis will assuredly become essential reading in many areas of anthropology.” -- Carolyn Barnes and Peter Benson * Anthropological Quarterly *"The pig’s body is shaped by the market and the prices of its various parts. But more shockingly, as Blanchette argues, much the same is true of the bodies of the workers sucked into the maw of this gigantic meat machine. It would be hard to find a more compelling critique of contemporary capitalist exploitation of what was once part of the natural world." -- John Dupré * Los Angeles Review of Books *“Porkopolis provides a substantial and nuanced explanation of industrialized pork production that calls into question the collective societal energy invested into life-forms best suited for capitalist extraction. . . . Blanchette makes numerous contributions to sociology, anthropology, and more-than-human geographies.” -- Michaela Hoffelmeyer * Agriculture and Human Values *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Preface. Watching Hogs Watch Workers xiii A Note on Photography xvii Introduction. The "Factory" Farm 1 Part I. Boar 1. The Dover Flies 33 2. The Herd: Intimate Biosecurity and Posthuman Labor 45 Part II. Sow 3. Somos Puercos 73 4. Stimulation: Instincts in Production 89 Part III. Hog 5. Lutalyse 121 6. Stockperson: Love, Muscles, and the Industrial Runt 137 Part IV. Carcass 7. Miss Wicked 167 8. Biological System: Breaking in at the End of Industrial Time 177 Part V. Viscera 9. Maybe Some Blood, but Mostly Grease 203 10. Lifecycle: On Using All of the Porcine Species 211 Epilogue. The (De-)Industrialization of the World 239 Notes 247 References 265 Index 287
£75.65
Duke University Press Hard Luck and Heavy Rain The Ecology of Stories
Book SynopsisJoseph C. Russo takes readers into the everyday lives of the rural residents of southeast Texas, showing how their hard-luck stories render the region a mythopoetic landscape that epitomizes the impasse of American late capitalism.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. The Strange Time of Hard-Luck Stories 17 2. The Higher the Hair, the Closer to God 47 3. Queer Character and the Golden Triangle 76 4. Ringing Out 94 Notes 119 Bibliography 127 Index 135
£62.90
Duke University Press Hard Luck and Heavy Rain
Book SynopsisJoseph C. Russo takes readers into the everyday lives of the rural residents of southeast Texas, showing how their hard-luck stories render the region a mythopoetic landscape that epitomizes the impasse of American late capitalism.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. The Strange Time of Hard-Luck Stories 17 2. The Higher the Hair, the Closer to God 47 3. Queer Character and the Golden Triangle 76 4. Ringing Out 94 Notes 119 Bibliography 127 Index 135
£18.04
New York University Press Still Straight
Book SynopsisWhy some straight men have sex with other menWhy do some straight men in rural America have sex with other men? In Still Straight, Tony Silva convincingly argues that these menmany of whom enjoy hunting, fishing, and shooting gunsare not gay, bisexual, or just experimenting. As he shows, these men can enjoy a range of relationships with other men, from hookups to sexual friendships to secretive loving partnerships, all while strongly identifying with straight culture. Drawing on riveting interviews with straight white men who live in rural America, Silva explores the fascinating, and unexpected, disconnect between sexual behavior and identity. Some use sex with men to bond with other men in an acceptably masculine way; some are not particularly attracted to men, but are wary of emotional attachment with women; and others view sex with menas opposed to womenas a more acceptable form of extramarital sexual behavior. Taking us inside the lives of straight white men who have sex with oTrade Review"Could it be that straightness is more than a sexual orientation? Through illuminating interviews with straight identified men who have sex with other men, Silva’s answer is a resounding yes. This groundbreaking research documents ways that we might understand sexual identity as deeply tied to culture, place and age. A must read for scholars of sexuality." -- C.J. Pascoe, co-author of Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity and Change"Tony Silva’s revealing study of men who have sex with men (MSM) in rural America shows us how white racial identity statuses, heterosexual identity claims, and geography intersect in the secretive practices of men who seek out same-sex sexual encounters in America. Based on 60 in-depth interviews with a hard to study population, Silva argues that MSM and claim to be straight are a patterned phenomenon in a post-closeted American culture. Filled with important insights about sexual identity, race, and rural America, Still Straight is an important addition to the fields of masculinities and queer studies." -- James Joseph Dean, co-editor of Routledge International Handbook of Heterosexualities Studies"In Silva’s extensive interviews with adult men living in conservative, rural communities, we observe the messy paradox of their lives as they attempt to reconcile their same-sex behavior with a straight identity. You will be amazed by their justifications." -- Ritch C. Savin-Williams, author of Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity among Men
£66.60
New York University Press Outlaw Women
Book SynopsisA journey into the experiences of incarcerated women in rural areas, revealing how location can reinforce gendered violenceIncarceration is all too often depicted as an urban problem, a male problem, a problem that disproportionately affects people of color. This book, however, takes readers to the heart of the struggles of the outlaw women of the rural West, considering how poverty and gendered violence overlap to keep women literally and figuratively imprisoned. Outlaw Women examines the forces that shape women's experiences of incarceration and release from prison in the remote, predominantly white communities that many Americans still think of as the Western frontier. Drawing on dozens of interviews with women in the state of Wyoming who were incarcerated or on parole, the authors provide an in-depth examination of women's perceptions of their lives before, during, and after imprisonment. Considering cultural mores specific to the rural West, the authors identify the forces that coTrade ReviewA unique, readable, lengthy study of female incarceration in the Wyoming women's prison, one of 67 state women's prisons in the US. * Choice *
£66.60
New York University Press Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf
Book SynopsisWitty, bawdy, and vicious, Yusuf al-Shirbini's Brains Confounded pits the coarse rural masses against the refined urban population. In Volume One, al-Shirbini describes the three rural typespeasant cultivator, village man-of-religion, and rural dervishoffering anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness, and criminality of each. In Volume Two, he presents a hilarious parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of his day, with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named Abu Shaduf, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes. Wielding the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirbini responds to the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire with digressions into love, food, and flatulence. Volume Two of Brains Confounded is followed by Risible Rhymes, a concise text that includes a comic disquisition on rural verse, mocking the pretensions of uneducated poets from Egypt's countryside. Risible Rhymes alTrade Review"Lucid and imaginative...the translation is thankfully reliable and delightfully readable...a remarkable achievement in many ways." -- Li Guo * Journal of the American Oriental Society *"Paints a sharp portrait of Egyptian villagers. . . . This book has long had its passionate Egyptian adherents: both for its bawdy depictions of village life and for its language, which moves deftly between colloquial and 'high' classical expressions." * Middle East Eye *
£12.99
New York University Press Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf
Book SynopsisWitty, bawdy, and vicious, Yusuf al-Shirbini's Brains Confounded pits the coarse rural masses against the refined urban population. In Volume One, al-Shirbini describes the three rural typespeasant cultivator, village man-of-religion, and rural dervishoffering anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness, and criminality of each. In Volume Two, he presents a hilarious parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of his day, with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named Abu Shaduf, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes. Wielding the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirbini responds to the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire with digressions into love, food, and flatulence. Volume Two of Brains Confounded is followed by Risible Rhymes, a concise text that includes a comic disquisition on rural verse, mocking the pretensions of uneducated poets from Egypt's countryside. Risible Rhymes alTrade Review"Lucid and imaginative...the translation is thankfully reliable and delightfully readable...a remarkable achievement in many ways." -- Li Guo * Journal of the American Oriental Society *"Paints a sharp portrait of Egyptian villagers. . . . This book has long had its passionate Egyptian adherents: both for its bawdy depictions of village life and for its language, which moves deftly between colloquial and 'high' classical expressions." * Middle East Eye *
£12.99
New York University Press Latino Heartland
Book SynopsisAddresses the politics of immigration, in the everyday lives of one communityNational immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily life like for Latinos who have been presented nationally as terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals? Latino Heartland offers an ethnography of the Latino and non-Latino residents of a small Indiana town, showing how national debate pitted neighbor against neighborand the strategies some used to combat such animosity. It conveys the lived impact of divisive political rhetoric on immigration and how race, gender, class, and ethnicity inform community belonging in the twenty-first century. Latino Heartland illuminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously re-made by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern spacTrade ReviewWriting with grace and compassion, Sujey Vega shows how Latinos seek to belong to the heartland of America, even while suffering from daily hurts and insults that wound their souls. A book about the heartland that is utterly heartbreaking, Vega makes a passionate call for justice and the urgent need to rethink U.S. immigration policy on humanistic terms. -- Ruth Behar,author of Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between JourneysFinally, an ethnographically rich work documenting the Latinization of a Midwestern city. Vega challenges us to rethink notions of community and belonging in our increasingly ethnically and racially diverse society, and offers a much-needed corrective vision to counter many of our fictive and obsolete ideas about our contemporary Midwestern cities, and of the United States in general. -- Arlene Davila,New York UniversityLatino Heartlandis an important read for anyone who is an instructor or graduate student of Latino studies, or who teaches of researches the sociology or anthropology of immigration. I also wholeheartedly recommend this book to all K-12 teachers and administrators. * Lat Stud *Latino Heartlandilluminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously re-made by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern space. * Law Professor Blogs Network,ImmigrationProf Blog *Latino Heartlandis an important read given the current atmosphere regarding the issue of immigration. * American Anthropologist *[] Vega notes in closing, Latinos in central Indiana, like all populations in all places and times, & created new networks, new tradition, and new ways of coping with the realities they faced. They are truly imaginative ones, and Vega rightly urges anthropologists (and good citizens) to pay more attention and respect to these fascinating and courageous acts. * Anthropology Review Database *Overall, this is a fascinating work that offers a fresh perspective on a frequently overlooked community (Latinos) in a frequently overlooked place (the rural Midwest). It is indeed a wake-up call to those of us who have the privilege of forgetting. * Contemporary Rural Social Work *Vega has written a wide-ranging study of Latinos in Greater Lafayette, IN, that challenges the notion of Midwestern homogeneity and the novelty of Latino immigration to the region.[T]he interviews that form the core of Vegas source base provide invaluable insight into the immigrant and non-white experience in the Midwest. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *Latino Heartlandis brilliant because it provides a ground-level analysis of the ways racist immigration policy affects the lives of Latino immigrants in a region where many people see them as a threat. * The Annals of Iowa *Table of ContentsContents Preface: Pioneering Ownership of Greater Lafayette ix Introduction: Bienvenidos a Hoosierlandia: Asserting Ethnic Belonging at the "Crossroads of America" 1 1. Recuerdos de Lafayette: The Making and Forgetting of the Past in Central Indiana 21 2. Kneading Home: Creating Community While Navigating Borders 61 3. Written Otherings: Policing Community at the "Crossroads of America" 99 4. Clashes at the Crossroads: The Impact of Microaggressions and Other Otherings in Daily Life 135 5. "United We Are Stronger": Clarifying Everyday Encounters with Belonging 173 Conclusion: The Politics of Belonging Wages On: How State-Based Legislation Affects Community in Indiana 217 Notes 227 Bibliography 241 Index 259 About the Author 263
£62.90
New York University Press Latino Heartland
Book SynopsisAddresses the politics of immigration, in the everyday lives of one communityNational immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily life like for Latinos who have been presented nationally as terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals? Latino Heartland offers an ethnography of the Latino and non-Latino residents of a small Indiana town, showing how national debate pitted neighbor against neighborand the strategies some used to combat such animosity. It conveys the lived impact of divisive political rhetoric on immigration and how race, gender, class, and ethnicity inform community belonging in the twenty-first century. Latino Heartland illuminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously re-made by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern spacTrade ReviewWriting with grace and compassion, Sujey Vega shows how Latinos seek to belong to the heartland of America, even while suffering from daily hurts and insults that wound their souls. A book about the heartland that is utterly heartbreaking, Vega makes a passionate call for justice and the urgent need to rethink U.S. immigration policy on humanistic terms. -- Ruth Behar,author of Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between JourneysFinally, an ethnographically rich work documenting the Latinization of a Midwestern city. Vega challenges us to rethink notions of community and belonging in our increasingly ethnically and racially diverse society, and offers a much-needed corrective vision to counter many of our fictive and obsolete ideas about our contemporary Midwestern cities, and of the United States in general. -- Arlene Davila,New York UniversityLatino Heartlandis an important read for anyone who is an instructor or graduate student of Latino studies, or who teaches of researches the sociology or anthropology of immigration. I also wholeheartedly recommend this book to all K-12 teachers and administrators. * Lat Stud *Latino Heartlandilluminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously re-made by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern space. * Law Professor Blogs Network,ImmigrationProf Blog *Latino Heartlandis an important read given the current atmosphere regarding the issue of immigration. * American Anthropologist *[] Vega notes in closing, Latinos in central Indiana, like all populations in all places and times, & created new networks, new tradition, and new ways of coping with the realities they faced. They are truly imaginative ones, and Vega rightly urges anthropologists (and good citizens) to pay more attention and respect to these fascinating and courageous acts. * Anthropology Review Database *Overall, this is a fascinating work that offers a fresh perspective on a frequently overlooked community (Latinos) in a frequently overlooked place (the rural Midwest). It is indeed a wake-up call to those of us who have the privilege of forgetting. * Contemporary Rural Social Work *Vega has written a wide-ranging study of Latinos in Greater Lafayette, IN, that challenges the notion of Midwestern homogeneity and the novelty of Latino immigration to the region.[T]he interviews that form the core of Vegas source base provide invaluable insight into the immigrant and non-white experience in the Midwest. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *Latino Heartlandis brilliant because it provides a ground-level analysis of the ways racist immigration policy affects the lives of Latino immigrants in a region where many people see them as a threat. * The Annals of Iowa *Table of ContentsContents Preface: Pioneering Ownership of Greater Lafayette ix Introduction: Bienvenidos a Hoosierlandia: Asserting Ethnic Belonging at the "Crossroads of America" 1 1. Recuerdos de Lafayette: The Making and Forgetting of the Past in Central Indiana 21 2. Kneading Home: Creating Community While Navigating Borders 61 3. Written Otherings: Policing Community at the "Crossroads of America" 99 4. Clashes at the Crossroads: The Impact of Microaggressions and Other Otherings in Daily Life 135 5. "United We Are Stronger": Clarifying Everyday Encounters with Belonging 173 Conclusion: The Politics of Belonging Wages On: How State-Based Legislation Affects Community in Indiana 217 Notes 227 Bibliography 241 Index 259 About the Author 263
£23.74
University of Toronto Press Global Health and the Village
Book SynopsisDrawing on extensive original qualitative research, Global Health and The Village brings the complex local and transnational factors governing women's access to safe maternity care into focus.Table of ContentsContents List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Glossary of Acholi (Luo) Words Acknowledgements Chapter One: Introduction to A Crisis in Maternal Health Introduction Contexts of Care Background on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Skilled birth attendants (SBAs) and traditional birth attendants (TBAs) Policy and social contexts for maternity care and childbirth The post-conflict setting Methodology and Methods Key Institutional Ethnography definitions: Institutions, participants, and work Data collection Positioning myself as researcher Theorizing methods Outline Chapter Two: Ongoing Social Distress: Care-seeking in a Remote Post-Conflict Context Introduction Overview of the Conflict in Northern Uganda Ongoing Social and Economic Impacts of the War Abduction, health and community membership The internally displaced persons (IDP) camps Ongoing Social Distress: Land Conflicts and Disease Epidemics The outbreak of disease Agriculture Land disputes Poverty and lack of infrastructure Impacts on study participants Conclusion Map of Uganda Chapter Three: Pregnancy and Daily Life: Health System and Home Factors Shaping Care Introduction Focused (Goal-Oriented) Antenatal Care (ANC) The Message to Attend ANC The Provision of Mama Kits Formal Health Care Providers The setting for formal health care provision Clinical officers Midwives Enrolled comprehensive nurses, registered nurses, nursing assistants, and nurse aides Informal Health Care Providers Traditional birth attendants (TBAs) The village health team (VHT) Transportation, Nutrition, and Work Transportation Lack of capacity to provide care at sub-county health centres Nutrition and work Chapter Four: Charity and Control: When Help Requires Compliance Introduction A Reward for Care or a Gift to the Vulnerable? Divergent Ideas the Mama Kit’s Role The mama kit as creating and rewarding compliance with ANC The mama kits as an incentive or reward for health centre delivery The mama kits as supporting and signaling ‘vulnerable’ women The mama kits as a gift or charity Registration and Distribution of Mama Kits Health Centre Staff and Administrators on the Mama Kits’ Role: Helping the Vulnerable, or Motivating Care-seeking? “In our setting, who is the most poor?” Perceptions of vulnerability as a distribution criteria Health centre staff on the mama kit: ‘Motivating’ women to deliver at a health facility The Goals of the Uganda Red Cross NGO - Health Centre Partnerships: Problems with Withdrawal and Shortages Unpredictable Distribution Affects how Women Perceive Formal Care and Health Workers Conclusion Chapter Five: Vertical Health: Failures of Compulsory Couples HIV Testing Introduction Background: Prevalence, Policies, and Practice Women’s experiences of male reluctance Health Worker Perspectives on Couples HIV Testing During ANC Health Worker Strategies for Couples Testing in the Face of Male Reluctance “Without a Man We are Not Going to Give you a Card”: Male Refusal as a Barrier to Women’s Care Gender, Couples Testing, and Vertical Health Gender and Intersectional Power Relationships Conclusion Chapter Six: Conclusions: Reconceiving the Maternal Health Crisis Introduction Global goals, Local lives Discourses governing care: Choice, tradition and culture Limitations Conclusion References
£31.50
University of Toronto Press Social Welfare in Ontario 17911893
Book SynopsisThe decision to undertake a study of some aspect of the development of social welfare in Ontario was made as a result of separate but related discussions in the early 1950's with the late Dr. Harry M. Cassidy, Professor Frank H. Underhill, and Professor John S. Morgan, from each of whom I received helpful advice. The topic first considered was child welfare, but some exploration revealed that programmes for the protection of children emerged rather late in the total structure of welfare services in the province and could hardly be assessed until earlier developments in the broader field had been examined. It was thus decided to carry out a study of the whole field of social welfare, with particular reference to the ro1e played by the provincial government.
£27.90
Cornell University Press Singlewide
Book SynopsisIn Singlewide, Sonya Salamon and Katherine MacTavish explore the role of the trailer park as a source of affordable housing. America's trailer parks, most in rural places, shelter an estimated 12 million people, and the authors show how these parks serve as a private solution to a pressing public need. Singlewide considers the circumstances of families with school-age children in trailer parks serving whites in Illinois, Hispanics in New Mexico, and African Americans in North Carolina. By looking carefully at the daily lives of families who live side by side in rows of manufactured homes, Salamon and MacTavish draw conclusions about the importance of housing, community, and location in the families' dreams of opportunities and success as signified by eventually owning land and a conventional home. Working-poor rural families who engage with what Salamon and MacTavish call the mobile home industrial complex may become caught in an expensive trap starting with their purcTrade ReviewThe book realistically portrays trailer living in each unique area chosen by the authors. * Pasatiempo *The authors discuss four research questions involving the lasting effects on a family from living in a trailer park, financial payoffs, sense of belonging in a community, and the possibility that children and youth can improve their life chances. They also summarize the role of mobile home manufacturers, dealers, financers, park operators, and nearby communities. * Choice *Singlewide provides a rich and valuable picture of mobile-home park life, and the lessons learned spread well beyond these contexts. Scholars of poverty, housing, exploitation, families and communities, and child development will have much to gain from this important work. * Journal of Children and Poverty *This book addresses an important aspect of rural communities that have been understudied. Its strength is the in-depth stories drawn from the field studies that detail how families enter into trailer park living, and more importantly, how they become trapped there. It also effectively demonstrates how the stigmatized rural landscapes of trailer parks can impact youth opportunities and social networks.... This book represents a welcome exploration of mobile home park communities, and scholars who focus on a wide array of rural issues will find it interesting and useful. * Social & Cultural Geography *Singlewide provides a thoughtful sample of the millions of families living and raising children in rural or small-town mobile home parks. * Planning *Singlewide is an excellent addition to the rural sociology literature because it provides a rich account of the role of trailer parks in rural areas and of low-income households' housing strategies.... This book is enjoyable to read since it is well researched, well written, and well organized. Beyond rural scholars interested in housing and the wider topics mentioned above, this book should be suitable for many audiences. In particular, it should be approachable for undergraduate students and could be useful in a class on poverty or even in an introduction to sociology class to illustrate social mobility and structure versus agency. This book could also be useful in a graduate research methods seminar because it is a good example of approachable yet rigorous scholarship that draws on multiple data sources and types. Last, with a chapter focused on implications and recommendations, this book should be of interest to housing advocates, service providers, and policy makers. * Rural Sociology *Singlewide blazes a trail for future researchers to follow, opening our eyes to the limited housing options available in rural America. * American Journal of Sociology *This extensive study addresses a largely neglected subject and provides an important contribution to our understanding of class and place in America. Recommended for scholars in community, family, and policy studies. * Contemporary Sociology *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Mobile Home Industrial Complex 2. Making Ends Meet 3. The Illinois Park 4. The North Carolina Parks 5. The New Mexico Parks 6. Youth and Trailer-Park Life 7. Reforming the Mobile Home Industrial Complex Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix A Appendix B Notes Bibliography Index
£27.54
Cornell University Press Mobilizing for Development
Book SynopsisMobilizing 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 (1950s1970s), South Korea (1950s1970s), and China (1980s2000s), Kristen E. Looney shows that different types of development outcomesimprovements in agricultural production, rural living standards, and the village environmentwere 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 induTrade ReviewThe book combines an original theoretical framework, rich knowledge and profound insight about all three cases, and an exemplary comparative historical analysis. It should be treated seriously by those interested in developmental states, rural studies and East Asia, and will definitely trigger more discussions. For China scholars, the book's conceptualization and analysis of campaigns also advance our understanding of this policy tool that is so commonly pursued in the country. * The China Quarterly *Looney not only expertly recounts the socio-economic context of the campaigns in Taiwan, South Korea, and China: through an analysis of the style of their implementation and outcomes we also learn how these campaigns ended up with such different results. * The University of British Columbia *In Mobilizing for Development, political scientist Kristen E. Looney masterfully illuminates and compares the poorly understood—and often ignored—role that rural development played in the developmental success stories of Taiwan, South Korea, and China... [T]his manuscript will be a must for scholars who research development or the politics of these East Asian societies... [A] writing style that is simultaneously engaging and in-depth, both sparing and rich with detail... * Developing Economies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The State and Rural Development in East Asia 1. The Role of Rural Institutions and State Campaigns in Development 2. Rural Development in Taiwan, 1950s–1970s 3. Rural Development in South Korea, 1950s–1970s 4. Rural Development in China, 1980s–2000s Conclusion: The Rural Developmental State
£37.05
Cornell University Press Sweet Deal Bitter Landscape
Book SynopsisSweet Deal, Bitter Landscape brings us to the mid-2000s, when the Tanzanian government struck a deal with a foreign investor to convert more than 20,000 hectares of long-settled coastal land to establish a sugarcane plantation. Ten years on, the deal was abruptly abandoned. Popularly deemed a case of hubristic global development, critics classified this project another in a line of failed modern resource grabs. Youjin B. Chung argues such tidy accounts conceal myriad and profound implications: not only how gender, history, and culture shaped the project''s trajectory, but also how, even in its stalled state, the deal upended social life on the land by setting in motion incomplete processes of development and dispossession. With rich ethnographic detail and visual storytelling, Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscape traces the lived experiences of diverse rural women and men as they struggled for survival under a seemingly endless condition o
£97.20
Cornell University Press Sweet Deal Bitter Landscape
Book SynopsisSweet Deal, Bitter Landscape brings us to the mid-2000s, when the Tanzanian government struck a deal with a foreign investor to convert more than 20,000 hectares of long-settled coastal land to establish a sugarcane plantation. Ten years on, the deal was abruptly abandoned. Popularly deemed a case of hubristic global development, critics classified this project another in a line of failed modern resource grabs. Youjin B. Chung argues such tidy accounts conceal myriad and profound implications: not only how gender, history, and culture shaped the project''s trajectory, but also how, even in its stalled state, the deal upended social life on the land by setting in motion incomplete processes of development and dispossession. With rich ethnographic detail and visual storytelling, Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscape traces the lived experiences of diverse rural women and men as they struggled for survival under a seemingly endless condition o
£22.49
Stanford University Press Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: The
Book SynopsisIn 1939, residents of a rural village near Chengdu watched as Lei Mingyuan, a member of a violent secret society known as the Gowned Brothers, executed his teenage daughter. Six years later, Shen Baoyuan, a sociology student at Yenching University, arrived in the town to conduct fieldwork on the society that once held sway over local matters. She got to know Lei Mingyuan and his family, recording many rare insights about the murder and the Gowned Brothers' inner workings. Using the filicide as a starting point to examine the history, culture, and organization of the Gowned Brothers, Di Wang offers nuanced insights into the structures of local power in 1940s rural Sichuan. Moreover, he examines the influence of Western sociology and anthropology on the way intellectuals in the Republic of China perceived rural communities. By studying the complex relationship between the Gowned Brothers and the Chinese Communist Party, he offers a unique perspective on China's transition to socialism. In so doing, Wang persuasively connects a family in a rural community, with little overt influence on national destiny, to the movements and ideologies that helped shape contemporary China.Trade Review"Di Wang's rich volume on the Sichuan Paoge offers a major contribution to the history of Chinese secret societies. Based in part on the fascinating thesis of a sociology student at Yenching University, the study brilliantly illuminates the complex linkages between rural society and culture, the limits of local government, and Western-inspired intellectual efforts to arrive at a new understanding of peasant life." -- David Ownby * author of Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China *"Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain is the first monograph in English that is solely dedicated to the study of paoge, one of the most influential secret societies in the upper- and middle-Yangzi regions in pre-1949 China. An elegant microhistory, this work weaves an intimate study with larger social and political contexts involving rebellions, revolutions, foreign invasion, state penetration, and peasant resistance that characterized twentieth-century China." -- Huaiyin Li * University of Texas at Austin *"Without doubt, Di Wang's new book represents an excellent example of a microhistory writing in the field of modern Chinese history." -- Shaofan An * Frontiers of History in China *"Every once in a blue moon, this reviewer finishes a book and thinks: 'Now this is the kind of book I aspire to write.' Di Wang's Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain is one of those rare books....Full of pathos and interwoven with complex narratives, Violence and Order is rich in anthropological and sociological data collected in the 1930s and 1940s, and complete with entertaining and humanizing historical anecdotes." -- Kelly Hammond * China Review International *"Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain is an illuminating study of how secret societies operated in early twentieth-century Sichuan and how they have been understood....[The book] adds to the recent flourishing of studies of Sichuan in the Republican period." -- Henrietta Harrison * Journal of Asian Studies *"Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain is a far-reaching contribution to scholarship on secret societies, local governance, popular culture, and rural society in the first half of China's twentieth century that deserves to be widely read, by both specialists and nonspecialists alike." -- Benno R. Weiner * Twentieth-Century China *"Wang has made an impressive contribution to our understanding of Chinese secret societies, specifically the Paoge....this book is highly readable and is a welcome addition to the historiography of modern China." -- Hongyan Xiang * Pacific Affairs *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Two Voices Joined in the Chengdu Plain chapter abstractThe academic disciplines of sociology and anthropology took root in 1920s China under the influence of American scholars and missionaries. Among these pioneers were Shen Baoyuan's teachers in the Department of Sociology at Yenching University in Beijing. Under their influence, Shen aspired to become a "rural activist" and went to the countryside to learn about rural issues from peasants. In the summer of 1945 she traveled to the village she called Hope Township in the Chengdu Plain, Sichuan Province, to investigate the Gowned Brothers. This introduction discusses past scholarship of secret societies and traces the intellectual origins of Shen's investigation that built the academic foundation for her fieldwork. 1A Public Execution chapter abstractShen Baoyuan created the pseudonym Hope Township to protect the privacy of the people she investigated. However, based on the information in her report as well as other historical sources, this chapter confirms that Hope Township is in fact Chongyiqiao, a northern suburb of Chengdu. Lei Mingyuan, the central personality in Shen's report and head of the local branch of the Gowned Brothers, publicly lynched his daughter and the young tailor who worked for the family in response to rumors that the two were engaged in an affair. Despite the brutal and brazen nature of his crimes, however, Lei did not face any charges. This chapter details the horrific crime and its ramifications, looking at the problematic prevalence of lynching and the rule of law at the time. 2A Local Band of the Gowned Brothers chapter abstractThe Chengdu Plain, in rural western Sichuan, was one of the most affluent areas in all of inland China. All aspects of geography, ecology, economy, lifestyle, and local culture and customs enhanced the development and survival of the Gowned Brothers, who thrived here. This chapter describes these factors as well as the growth of the secret society. The organization was founded in the early Qing period with the goal of "overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Ming." In its long struggle against the Qing government, the Gowned Brothers developed a solid organizational structure and extensive power network. A large proportion of Sichuan's male population were members and played an active role in local control and security. This chapter documents how this secret society assumed and enforced dominance of local communities. 3Spirituality and Customs chapter abstractThis chapter explores the spiritual beliefs and actions of the Gowned Brothers and looks at how these reinforced the secret society's power structure. Paoge members took what was traditional and fashioned a variety of specialized rites and customs for themselves. Over the past forty or so years, historians and students of Chinese society have taken a much-needed neutral, in some sense anthropological, stance toward China's broad landscape of rites, beliefs, and religious and ceremonial practices. This chapter turns to the unique observations of Shen Baoyuan, who was fascinated with what many in academe of her time thought of as arcane and superstitious ploys. It begins with a short sketch of how traditional rites and beliefs were acted out in the Paoge's own local areas. Popular religions were closely tied to local culture, and the Gowned Brothers worshipped Guandi, which brought members together to fight for a common goal. 4Secret Codes and Language chapter abstractIn her investigation, Shen Baoyuan documented unique words used by Paoge members in everyday life, rituals, and communication, often referred to as "black words" or "hidden lingo." Her 1946 report explained pointed out that the very name of the Paoge originates from an agenda of "national spirit" and "revolutionary ideas," which was a way to refer to the anti-Manchu revolution. Haidi, documenting the organization's history, language, structure, and other information, was the organization's canonical text. The Gowned Brothers created their own language, which reflected their unique political ideas, identity, and historical narratives and provided a covert means of communication. This chapter analyzes the development and role of their secret language as well as the political implications. 5Disciplines and Dominance chapter abstractMembers of the Gowned Brothers reinforced their solidarity and internal stability through strict regulations, codes of conduct, and rituals for meetings and other activities. Any member who violated them would be harshly punished or even executed. This chapter examines these regulations and their chilling effect on nearly every type of behavior. Paoge members actively participated in stabilizing local order. The parties involved in a dispute usually did not pursue justice through a formal, forensic process, but instead went to a teahouse for "negotiation tea." This practice was an important means through which Paoge members learned about current events and kept order in even the smallest of neighborhoods. As prominent members of the community, the brothers challenged official judicial power in this role. This chapter describes the Paoge's mediation process and its effect on local jurisprudence. 6A Tenant Farmer and Paoge Master chapter abstractThis chapter examines Lei Mingyuan's economic situation as his leadership in the Gowned Brothers grew. Scholars generally believed that a tenant belonged to the economic class of poor peasants, but Lei, as a tenant farmer, did not actually do fieldwork. Instead, he hired four short-term laborers, whom he paid on a daily basis. Contrary to the assumption that a leader of the secret society would at least be economically well-to-do, Lei did not fit any category of the rural class division established by the Chinese Communist Party during the Land Revolution in the early 1950s. He rose to power primarily through success in fighting bandits. 7Entering the Paoge chapter abstractThis chapter describes the dynamics that led the Paoge worldview and policies that took hold in the Lei family. Although Lei Mingyuan was a Paoge leader, he was not omnipotent, according to Shen Baoyuan's observations in her 1946 report. He was imperceptibly influenced by social constraints, but he had to support his family and fulfill family obligations. Rice cultivation was the primary focus of those who lived in Hope Township, and the home Lei shared with his second wife, Woman Lei, was surrounded by bamboo groves and paddies. Woman Lei was literate and stern, the survivor of a great tragedy in her first marriage. Her demeanor and shrewdness enhanced the family's ability to establish Lei's reputation as a leader in the organization. 8The Decline of Power chapter abstractThis chapter describes the events that sealed Lei Mingyuan's grim demise, through the lens of the larger framework of leadership in the Gowned Brothers. Given his apparent lifestyle and role in his village from about 1939 to 1945, Lei was incapable of maintaining his responsibilities. Covering up his growing financial and leadership problems, Lei lost his economic freedom when his paddy fields of about seven acres were transferred to another tenant as a result of his failure to pay rent. One might assume that a landlord would not dare enforce the rules against a man as powerful as Lei, but in reality all landholders, despite their status, were subject to the same standards. As Lei's personal economic situation weakened, the financial support he had provided his subordinates diminished, thus causing his political power to wane as well. 9A Family Crisis and a Rural Woman's Fate chapter abstractLei Mingyuan understood that his leadership position in the Gowned Brothers depended on the strength of his reputation. His need to "save face" had driven him to carry out the public execution of his daughter and her presumed lover. This chapter weaves together other stories and details of community life revealing that the women in Lei's family suffered under his tyranny. Lei's economic and political instability drew him into a life of decadence: he began taking opium, further escalating his personal financial crisis. Notoriety resulted for Lei family when their servant girl ran away, further diminishing Lei's reputation and authority. Lei was indifferent to his family's suffering and sought a concubine. Woman Lei resisted, however, and garnered the support from other Gowned Brothers, leading Lei Mingyuan to abort his plan. Eventually, the couple reconciled and the Lei family moved to a shabby house in a neighborhood of coolies. 10Fall of the Paoge chapter abstractThis chapter explores how the Communists established their control in rural China. Knowledge of the transition from the Nationalist regime to the socialist state has centered on major cities, and there has been little understanding of how the CCP extended its power into the countryside. This chapter reveals that the Paoge did not confront the CCP upon its arrival on the Chengdu Plain; rather, the organization quietly watched the situation unfold. When the new regime imposed a grain tax, however, the group led resistance in what the Communist discourse called the "bandit riots." Although the Paoge had many connections with the Communist revolution, the CCP could not tolerate its antiestablishment tradition and was determined to destroy the organization entirely. 11Looking for the Storyteller chapter abstractThis book is primarily concerned with two people: Paoge leader Lei Mingyuan (and his family) and Shen Baoyuan, the storyteller. This chapter provides important, new information on Shen and her 1946 report. Lei and Shen lived in two completely different worlds, with different geographical, educational, social, and economic backgrounds, but they intersected in the summer of 1945. One was investigated and described; the other was the investigator and narrator. Both played a role in retelling an untold, powerful piece of human history. The book is also a three-way narrative: in addition to Lei and Shen, there is the author, who engages the dialogue and attempts to understand the Paoge leader Lei Mingyuan through Shen Baoyuan's perspective. 12Untangling Paoge Myth chapter abstractThis chapter's comprehensive examination of texts and narratives aids the understanding of how the public's perception of the Gowned Brothers was constructed over the centuries. These materials reveal the complex relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Paoge. In her report Shen Baoyuan harshly criticized the Paoge in Hope Township, but she found a reason to be hopeful by the fresh ideas presented in Righteous Monthly, a journal published by the organization in Chengdu. At the time, however, Shen did not realize that the journal actually was controlled by the CCP. More than six decades have passed since the Paoge was obliterated. However, during the post-Mao reform the CCP gradually loosened its control, leaving a prime opportunity for the revival of at least some secret societies in China.
£86.40
Stanford University Press Poverty as Subsistence: The World Bank and
Book SynopsisPoverty as Subsistence explores the "propertizing" land reform policy that the World Bank advocated throughout the transitioning countries of Eurasia, expecting poverty reduction to result from distributing property titles over agricultural land to local (rural) populations. China's early 1980s land reform offered support for this expectation, but while the spread of propertizing reform to post-communist Eurasia created numerous "subsistence" smallholders, it failed to stimulate entrepreneurship or market-based production among the rural poor. Varga argues that the World Bank advocated a simplified version of China's land reform that ignored a key element of successful reforms: the smallholders' immediate environment, the structure of actors and institutions determining whether smallholders survive and grow in their communities. With concrete insights from analysis of the land reform program throughout post-communist Eurasia and multisited fieldwork in Romania and Ukraine, this book details how and why land reform led to subsistence and the mechanisms underpinning informal commercialization.Trade Review"The creation of private property in land on the farms of post-communist Europe and Central Asia failed to produce a class of commercially-minded entrepreneurial farmers. Mihai Varga shows us why. This is a major book on post-communist agrarian change, with important insights of much wider contemporary relevance."—Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Trent University"Poverty as Subsistence is a must read for scholars, policy makers, and development practitioners considering land transfers and market-based solutions to rural poverty. Mihai Varga's timely analysis provides powerful insights on why and how agricultural reforms advocated by the World Bank and other agencies often undermine livelihoods of tightly knit rural economies."—Diana Mincyte, The City University of New York"This book demonstrates that the World Bank failed in post-communist transition by adopting a too narrow and ideological perspective on institutional reforms. It focused too much on creating individual property rights and not enough on the institutional environment of purchasing and distribution. Varga's insightful work reveals the result: that the World Bank reduced post-communist countries to a pre-war model of subsistence agriculture."—Mitchell A. Orenstein, University of Pennsylvania"As a work of sociology and political economy, Poverty as Subsistence adds to the critical studies of agrarian development in the contemporary era and raises new questions for scholars of environment and agrarian change.... Most crucially, the book demonstrates the continual relevance of land reform in agrarian economies and the versatile adaptation and resistance of rural people, showing that land is not simply an interchangeable property in the market but deeply rooted in interpersonal relationships and memory."—Leo Chu, H-EnvironmentTable of ContentsIntroduction: Poverty Reduction through Land Transfers 1. Pro-poor Reforms: The Propertizing Paradigm 2. Pro-poor Land Reform In Eurasia 3. The Reform Continuum: From China to Russia 4. Smallholders: A Fieldwork Study of Resilience and Resistance 5. Resilience: Survival and Growth of Smallholder Agriculture 6. Resistance: Smallholders against Commercialization Conclusions: The Limits of Pro-poor Land Reform
£50.40
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century:
Book SynopsisRural 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.Trade Review“Rural America finally has a textbook. David Brown and Kai Schafft provide an even-handed examination of rural American society that cuts through the mythology and stereotypes, documenting the processes and issues facing rural peoples and communities. This expanded new edition helps us understand not only what rural America is, but also what it means to be rural in an urbanizing and polarizing world.”Jeffrey Jacquet, The Ohio State University “The 2016 U.S. presidential election made it obvious that the experience of people in rural areas matters for the political, social, and economic wellbeing of the nation. For anyone wanting to get up to speed on the nature of life in rural places, this book is a goldmine."Katherine Cramer, University of Wisconsin-Madison"Deservedly marketed as a standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural and/or community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development and other related courses."Progress in Development StudiesTable of Contents Part I. Thinking About Rural Places in Metropolitan Society 1. Rurality in Metropolitan Societies 2. Urbanization and Population Redistribution 3. Rural Politics and Governance Part II. Rural Communities, Institutions and Environments 4. Understanding Community in Rural Society 5. Community Institutions in Rural Society 6. Natural Resources and Social Change Part III. Rural Populations 7. Youth, Aging, and the Life Course 8. Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Rural Areas Part IV. Rural Economy and Socioeconomic Wellbeing 9. Making a Living in Rural Communities 10. Farms, Farmers, and Farming in Contemporary Rural Society 11. Poverty Across Rural People and Places Part V. Conclusions 12. A Transformed Rural Society: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future
£58.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century:
Book SynopsisRural 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.Trade Review“Rural America finally has a textbook. David Brown and Kai Schafft provide an even-handed examination of rural American society that cuts through the mythology and stereotypes, documenting the processes and issues facing rural peoples and communities. This expanded new edition helps us understand not only what rural America is, but also what it means to be rural in an urbanizing and polarizing world.”Jeffrey Jacquet, The Ohio State University “The 2016 U.S. presidential election made it obvious that the experience of people in rural areas matters for the political, social, and economic wellbeing of the nation. For anyone wanting to get up to speed on the nature of life in rural places, this book is a goldmine."Katherine Cramer, University of Wisconsin-Madison"Deservedly marketed as a standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural and/or community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development and other related courses."Progress in Development StudiesTable of Contents Part I. Thinking About Rural Places in Metropolitan Society 1. Rurality in Metropolitan Societies 2. Urbanization and Population Redistribution 3. Rural Politics and Governance Part II. Rural Communities, Institutions and Environments 4. Understanding Community in Rural Society 5. Community Institutions in Rural Society 6. Natural Resources and Social Change Part III. Rural Populations 7. Youth, Aging, and the Life Course 8. Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Rural Areas Part IV. Rural Economy and Socioeconomic Wellbeing 9. Making a Living in Rural Communities 10. Farms, Farmers, and Farming in Contemporary Rural Society 11. Poverty Across Rural People and Places Part V. Conclusions 12. A Transformed Rural Society: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future
£18.99
University of Minnesota Press Power and Progress on the Prairie: Governing
Book SynopsisA critical exploration of how modernity and progress were imposed on the people and land of rural South Dakota The Rosebud Country, comprising four counties in rural South Dakota, was first established as the Rosebud Indian Reservation in 1889 to settle the Sicangu Lakota. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, white homesteaders arrived in the area and became the majority population. Today, the population of Rosebud Country is nearly evenly divided between Indians and whites. In Power and Progress on the Prairie, Thomas Biolsi traces how a variety of governmental actors, including public officials, bureaucrats, and experts in civil society, invented and applied ideas about modernity and progress to the people and the land. Through a series of case studies—programs to settle “surplus” Indian lands, to “civilize” the Indians, to “modernize” white farmers, to find strategic sites for nuclear missile silos, and to extend voting rights to Lakota people—Biolsi examines how these various “problems” came into focus for government experts and how remedies were devised and implemented.Drawing on theories of governmentality derived from Michel Foucault, Biolsi challenges the idea that the problems identified by state agents and the solutions they implemented were inevitable or rational. Rather, through fine-grained analysis of the impact of these programs on both the Lakota and white residents, he reveals that their underlying logic was too often arbitrary and devastating.Trade Review"Power and Progress on the Prairie provides a unprecedented application of Foucaultian governmentality and biopower, Marxist primitive accumulation, and Tania Li's concept of ‘the will to improve’ in the context of the development and disciplining of the rural North American heartland. An insightful, empowering read for those working to understand U.S. policy over time in rural contexts and Indian-White relations in the context of State interventions, this book will help students think creatively and confidently about operationalizing political economic theory over space and time to unpack the messy and incomplete process of governing rural America."—Beth Rose Middleton, University of California, Davis"The book’s theoretical framework and its lessons make it important reading for Iowans and all citizens of the nation’s heartland who will be able to discern the workings of governmentality in their own states and lives."—The Annals of Iowa"Power and Progress on the Prairie: Governing People on Rosebud Reservation by Thomas Biolsi is an important book that takes a theoretical approach to explaining both the obvious and the hidden power struc- tures within the United States that contrib- uted to the dispossession of indigenous peoples."—Western Historical QuarterlyTable of ContentsContentsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. The Birth of Liberalism on the Prairie, or How Not to Govern Too Much2. Discipline and Governmentality: Civilizing Indians and Making Farmers Progressive3. New Deal Practices: How Not to Govern Too Little4. Making New Deal Subjects5. Planning Who Shall Die So Others May Live: Biopower and Cold War National Security6. Voting Rights, or How a Regulatory Assemblage GovernsConclusion: When Stories about the Countryside Have PowerAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press On the Rural: Economy, Sociology, Geography
Book SynopsisA collection of previously untranslated writings by Henri Lefebvre on rural sociology, situating his research in relation to wider Marxist workOn the Rural is the first English collection to translate Lefebvre’s crucial but lesser-known writings on rural sociology and political economy, presenting a wide-ranging approach to understanding the historical and rural sociology of precapitalist social forms, their endurance today, and conditions of dispossession and uneven development. In On the Rural, Stuart Elden and Adam David Morton present Lefebvre’s key works on rural questions, including the first half of his book Du rural à l’urbain and supplementary texts, two of which are largely unknown conference presentations published outside France. On the Rural offers methodological orientations for addressing questions of economy, sociology, and geography by deploying insights from spatial political economy to decipher the rural as a terrain and stake of capitalist transformation. By doing so, it reveals the production of the rural as a key site of capitalist development and as a space of struggle. This volume delivers a careful translation—supplemented with extensive notes and a substantive introduction—to cement Lefebvre’s central contribution to the political economy of rural sociology and geography. Trade Review"On the Rural is a remarkable collection. Lefebvre wrote as a historian, a sociologist, a geographer, a political-economist, and a philosopher. This makes for challenging reading at times but there are also brilliant passages that will goad readers on to the next page. "—Cleveland Review of BooksTable of ContentsFrom the Rural to the Urban and the Production of SpaceStuart Elden and Adam David MortonNotes on TranslationAcknowledgments1. Introduction to From the Rural to the Urban (1969)2. Problems of Rural Sociology: The Peasant Community and its Historical-Sociological Problems (1949)3. Social Classes in Rural Areas: Tuscany and the mezzadria classica (1950)4. Perspectives on Rural Sociology (1953)5. Social Relations, Population Phenomena, and Labor Problems in the Agricultural Sector of Underdeveloped Countries (1954)6. The Village Community (1956)7. The Theory of Ground Rent and Rural Sociology (1956)8. The Marxist–Leninist Theory of Ground Rent (1964)9. Introduction to the Psychosociology of Everyday Life (1960)10. The New Urban Complex: Lacq-Mourenx and the Urban Problems of the New Working Class (1960)11. Experimental Utopia: For a New Urbanism (1961)12. The Valley of Campan: A Study in Historical Sociology (1963)Publication HistoryIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition
Book SynopsisMeth cooks practice late industrial alchemy—transforming base materials, like lithium batteries and camping fuel, into gold Meth alchemists all over the United States tap the occulted potencies of industrial chemical and big pharma products to try to cure the ills of precarious living: underemployment, insecurity, and the feeling of idleness. Meth fires up your attention and makes repetitive tasks pleasurable, whether it’s factory work or tinkering at home. Users are awake for days and feel exuberant and invincible. In one person’s words, they “get more life.” The Alchemy of Meth is a nonfiction storybook about St. Jude County, Missouri, a place in decomposition, where the toxic inheritance of deindustrialization meets the violent hope of this drug-making cottage industry. Jason Pine bases the book on fieldwork among meth cooks, recovery professionals, pastors, public defenders, narcotics agents, and pharmaceutical executives. Here, St. Jude is not reduced to its meth problem but Pine looks at meth through materials, landscapes, and institutions: the sprawling context that makes methlabs possible. The Alchemy of Meth connects DIY methlabs to big pharma’s superlabs, illicit speed to the legalized speed sold as ADHD medication, uniquely implicating the author’s own story in the narrative. By the end of the book, the backdrop of St. Jude becomes the foreground. It could be a story about life and work anywhere in the United States, where it seems no one is truly clean and all are complicit in the exploitation of their precious resources in exchange for a livable present—or even the hope of a future.Trade Review"The Alchemy of Meth is a sui generis masterpiece. Jason Pine's kaleidoscopic vision provides a portrait of the American Dream seen from a place where instead something else flourishes: home methamphetamine production. He depicts both a human tragedy and the socioeconomic pressures that have made tragedy inevitable. The contemporary political moment makes this book particularly timely, but its grace and power will remain timeless."—Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"This is a truly remarkable ethnography of the affects, economies, and materialities of methamphetamine production (and consumption) in the decaying heartlands of the United States. Fearlessly experimental yet compulsively readable, it picks its way through debris-strewn landscapes, interweaving voices, stories, and idioms (from legal documents to poetry), encountering not only ruin and devastation but also strangeness, magic, and even, on occasion, hope."—Stuart McLean, University of Minnesota"Jason Pine’s writing is alchemical. By fusing his tales of ordinary citizens in Missouri cooking meth, he cooks up a story that goes deep and gives us a raw taste of the decaying fabric of American life today."—Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed and The Bohemians"By weaving together vignettes culled from interviews of users, cooks, family members of the affected, enforcement agents, and pharmaceutical company executives, Pine traced the topography of meth as its use expanded dramatically during the early 21st century."—CityLab"The Alchemy of Meth is like the best of person-centred ethnographies: humane, deliberate, and impactful."—Anthropological Forum
£54.40
University of Minnesota Press Visibility Interrupted: Rural Queer Life and the
Book SynopsisA questioning of the belief in the power of LGBTQ visibility through the lives of queer women in the rural Midwest Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being “out, loud, and proud.” Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation. Far from being an unambiguous good, argues Thomsen, visibility politics can, in fact, preclude collective action. They also advance metronormativity, postraciality, and capitalism. To make these interventions, Thomsen develops the theory of unbecoming: interrogating the relationship between that which we celebrate and that which we find disdainful—the past, the rural, politics—is crucial for developing alternative subjectivities and politics. Unbecoming precedes becoming. Drawing from critical race studies, disability studies, and queer Marxism, in addition to feminist and queer studies, the insights of this book will be useful to scholars theorizing issues far beyond sexuality and place and to social justice activists who want to move beyond visibility. Trade Review"Carly Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted is a must-read for any LGBTQ (loving) people who have ever thought that being 'out, loud, and proud' was a good thing. Disclosing how visibility politics emerges out of urban spaces and presumes that the rural is unbecoming, Thomsen goes on to demonstrate what women in rural South Dakota and Minnesota can teach us about LGBTQ politics, the rural, and the relation between the two. Provocative, extensively researched, and delivered in Thomsen’s lively voice, this groundbreaking ‘queer archive’ offers a new understanding of sexuality as spatial and a more capacious politics inspired by LGBTQ rural life."—Rosemary Hennessy, Rice University"Visibility Interrupted advances research and energizes debate in an emergent and under-examined area in LGBTQ studies: queer rurality. Not only does this work critique dominant queer metronormativity in the field, it also critically displaces the strongly masculinist conception of the bucolic and the rustic by focusing on LGBTQ women’s identity formation, world-making processes, and community-building practices in the rural Midwest. Carly Thomsen argues for complicating the queer rural Midwest and queerness in general by offering a critical optic that refuses the flattening of the pastoral and envisions alternative formations of LGBTQ future."—Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities"Despite decades of critique of visibility politics, the rural continues to persist as an inherently oppressive space for queers. This is an energizing read, both as a synthesis of these debates as well as a fresh take on the suturing of LGBTQ visibility to hegemonic constructs of race and capitalism. Uninterested in a politics of inclusion, Carly Thomsen artfully situates visibility as a form of labor—the work of producing and curating oneself inevitably for capitalism and for the state—that is unappealing and unnecessary for her rural lesbian interlocutors. Visibility therefore becomes a political aim that preempts other horizons of political action. Anchored in the growing scholarship on rural queer studies, Visibility Interrupted is also a major contribution to queer and feminist theory, critical race studies, and critical disability studies. The thought-provoking stories of these irreverent lesbians reveal the imaginative paucity at the heart of urban metronormative sexual cultures."—Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers University "As the first book-length study to focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) women in the rural Midwest, Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted identifies and responds to the shortcomings of an LGBTQ activist agenda that views visibility as a foremost catalyst for social change."—Gender & Society"A well-researched, notable addition to the expanding field of rural queer studies. Visibility Interrupted complicates assumptions about metronormativity, successfully demonstrating that LGBTQ people do live in rural settings and enjoy happy, liberated lives far from inferior to those of their urban counterparts. Focusing on LGBTQ women in the Midwest—specifically South Dakota and Minnesota—the book also aids in addressing the dearth of queer studies of women when compared to those of gay men."—ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Theorizing Queer Rurality and Calls for LGBTQ Visibility1. Metronormativity as Legacy: The Cases of Matthew Shepard and Jene Newsome2. (Be)coming Out, Be(com)ing Visible3. Post-Race, Post-Space: Calls for Disability and LGBTQ Visibility4. Queer Labors: Visibility and Capitalism5. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Metronormativity on the Move6. What’s the Use? Queer Critique in MotionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Visibility Interrupted: Rural Queer Life and the
Book SynopsisA questioning of the belief in the power of LGBTQ visibility through the lives of queer women in the rural Midwest Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being “out, loud, and proud.” Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation. Far from being an unambiguous good, argues Thomsen, visibility politics can, in fact, preclude collective action. They also advance metronormativity, postraciality, and capitalism. To make these interventions, Thomsen develops the theory of unbecoming: interrogating the relationship between that which we celebrate and that which we find disdainful—the past, the rural, politics—is crucial for developing alternative subjectivities and politics. Unbecoming precedes becoming. Drawing from critical race studies, disability studies, and queer Marxism, in addition to feminist and queer studies, the insights of this book will be useful to scholars theorizing issues far beyond sexuality and place and to social justice activists who want to move beyond visibility. Trade Review"Carly Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted is a must-read for any LGBTQ (loving) people who have ever thought that being 'out, loud, and proud' was a good thing. Disclosing how visibility politics emerges out of urban spaces and presumes that the rural is unbecoming, Thomsen goes on to demonstrate what women in rural South Dakota and Minnesota can teach us about LGBTQ politics, the rural, and the relation between the two. Provocative, extensively researched, and delivered in Thomsen’s lively voice, this groundbreaking ‘queer archive’ offers a new understanding of sexuality as spatial and a more capacious politics inspired by LGBTQ rural life."—Rosemary Hennessy, Rice University"Visibility Interrupted advances research and energizes debate in an emergent and under-examined area in LGBTQ studies: queer rurality. Not only does this work critique dominant queer metronormativity in the field, it also critically displaces the strongly masculinist conception of the bucolic and the rustic by focusing on LGBTQ women’s identity formation, world-making processes, and community-building practices in the rural Midwest. Carly Thomsen argues for complicating the queer rural Midwest and queerness in general by offering a critical optic that refuses the flattening of the pastoral and envisions alternative formations of LGBTQ future."—Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities"Despite decades of critique of visibility politics, the rural continues to persist as an inherently oppressive space for queers. This is an energizing read, both as a synthesis of these debates as well as a fresh take on the suturing of LGBTQ visibility to hegemonic constructs of race and capitalism. Uninterested in a politics of inclusion, Carly Thomsen artfully situates visibility as a form of labor—the work of producing and curating oneself inevitably for capitalism and for the state—that is unappealing and unnecessary for her rural lesbian interlocutors. Visibility therefore becomes a political aim that preempts other horizons of political action. Anchored in the growing scholarship on rural queer studies, Visibility Interrupted is also a major contribution to queer and feminist theory, critical race studies, and critical disability studies. The thought-provoking stories of these irreverent lesbians reveal the imaginative paucity at the heart of urban metronormative sexual cultures."—Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers University "As the first book-length study to focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) women in the rural Midwest, Thomsen’s Visibility Interrupted identifies and responds to the shortcomings of an LGBTQ activist agenda that views visibility as a foremost catalyst for social change."—Gender & Society"A well-researched, notable addition to the expanding field of rural queer studies. Visibility Interrupted complicates assumptions about metronormativity, successfully demonstrating that LGBTQ people do live in rural settings and enjoy happy, liberated lives far from inferior to those of their urban counterparts. Focusing on LGBTQ women in the Midwest—specifically South Dakota and Minnesota—the book also aids in addressing the dearth of queer studies of women when compared to those of gay men."—ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Theorizing Queer Rurality and Calls for LGBTQ Visibility1. Metronormativity as Legacy: The Cases of Matthew Shepard and Jene Newsome2. (Be)coming Out, Be(com)ing Visible3. Post-Race, Post-Space: Calls for Disability and LGBTQ Visibility4. Queer Labors: Visibility and Capitalism5. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Metronormativity on the Move6. What’s the Use? Queer Critique in MotionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£19.79
Bristol University Press Gender-based Violence and Rurality in the 21st
Book SynopsisGender-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 LGBTQIA+ 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.Table of Contents1. Understanding Rurality and Gender-based Violence - Ziwei Qi, April N. Terry & Tamara J. Lynn Part I: Rurality and Gender-based Violence 2. What is 'Rural', Anyway? - Millan Alexander AbiNader 3. Gender Blindness for At-risk Girls in Rural Communities - April N. Terry, L. Susan Williams, Mari Esther-Edwards & Kelli Grant 4. ‘Raise Your Hand If…’ Teen Dating Violence Prevention in Rural Secondary Schools - Kaiti Blackburn, Christie Brungardt, Jennifer Farrington & Rachel Moravek 5. College Students’ Perceptions of Interpersonal Violence - Madison Bainter, Abigail Hammeke, Joshua McDowell & Tamara J. Lynn Part II: Beyond the Rural/Urban Divide: Critical Issues in Gender-based Violence 6. 'Trying to Avoid Coyotes': The Nexus of Rurality, Violence, and Inequality - Amy M. Magnus 7. Comparing Characteristics of Rural and Urban Intimate Partner Violence Against Women - Nicholas J. Richardson, Samuel J.A. Scaggs, Camara Wooten & Kelle Barrick 8. Urban and Rural Media Reporting on Violence Against Transgender People - Lisa M. Olson, Marc Settembrino, Sam Allen & Megan Howard 9. Religious Responses for Rural Sexual Assault Survivors - April N. Terry Part III: Access to Rural Justice: Economic Consequences and Policy Implications 10. The Needs of Intimate Partner Violence Victims in Rural America - Ziwei Qi, Cristina Jimenez, Viviana Lizarraga & Brandi Hanson 11. ‘Nowhere to Go’: Intimate Violence and Opioid Use in Rural Vermont - Rebecca Stone, Nafisa Halim, Julia K. Campbell, Diane Kinney & Emily F. Rothman 12. Rural Rape Crisis Centres and Extreme Financial Deprivation - Anne Kirkner 13. Gender-based Violence Against New Immigrants - Carly E. McPeak & Valerie K. Sprout 14. Understanding Gender-based Violence and Rurality: Conclusion and Future Implications - Ziwei Qi, April N. Terry & Tamara J. Lynn
£77.39
Bristol University Press Transforming Agriculture and Foodways: The
Book SynopsisA wave of innovation driven by the convergence of digital and molecular technologies is transforming food production and ways of eating in the US, Western Europe and Australasia. This book explores a range of contemporary agri-food issues, such as the digitalisation of farm production, aka Precision Agriculture, farmer independence, gene editing, alternative proteins and the rise of app-based home food deliveries. This is the first book to provide a systemic analysis of technological innovation and its socio-economic consequences in modern food systems, including the ‘hollowing out’ of rural communities and pronounced industrial concentration. The food system is under growing public pressure to respond to global climate change, but this book finds little evidence of transition to sustainable low-carbon trajectories.Table of Contents1. Technological Convergence and Change in Modern Food Systems 2. Precision Agriculture: Big Data Analytics, Farm Support Platforms and Concentration in the AgTech Space 3. Precision Agriculture: Adoption, ‘Re-scripting’, Farmer Identity, Path Dependence and ‘Appropriationism 4.0’ 4. Alternative Proteins: Bio-mimicry, Structuring the New Protein Industry. ‘Promissory Narratives’. and ‘Substitutionism 4.0’ 5. The failed Promises of the Seed-Chemical Complex, CRISPR and Gene Editing, and Regulatory Capture 6. Between Physical Space and Digital Space: Changing Patterns of Food Provisioning, COVID-19 and Platform Capitalism 7. Conclusion and Postscript: Continuities in Change and Lost Opportunities
£72.00
Temple University Press,U.S. Livestock/Deadstock: Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter
Book SynopsisHow humans think and feel about their work handling food animalsTrade Review"This welcome book tackles an important and neglected topic in an interesting and insightful manner. Full of empirical detail and written in an engaging style, Livestock/Deadstock is a valuable contribution to an emerging literature focusing on agricultural knowledge practices and the complexities and ambiguities of human-animal relationships in farming." —Lewis Holloway, University of HullTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Food Animals: More Than a "Walking Larder"? 2. Domestication to Industry: The Commercialization of Human—Livestock Relations 3. Women and livestock: The Gendered Nature of Food-Animal Production 4. "Price Discovery": Marketing and Valuing Livestock 5. "The Good life": Hobby Farmers and Rare Breeds of Livestock 6. Sentient Commodities: The Ambiguous Status of Livestock 7. Affinities and Aloofness: The Pragmatic Nature of Producer—Livestock Relations 8. Livestock/Deadstock: Managing the Transition from Life to Death 9. Taking Stock: Food Animals, Ambiguous Relations, and Productive Contexts Notes Glossary of Doric Terms References Index
£58.40
Information Age Publishing Dynamics of Social Class, Race, and Place in
Book Synopsis
£80.54
WW Norton & Co American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a
Book SynopsisThe arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn’t stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate—there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning. The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie’s confession unspooled, it got deeper and weirder. He wasn’t lighting fires alone; his crimes were galvanized by a surprising love story. Over a year of investigating, Hesse uncovered the motives of Charlie and his accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick, a woman of steel-like strength and an inscrutable past. Theirs was a love built on impossibly tight budgets and simple pleasures. They were each other’s inspiration and escape…until they weren’t. Though it’s hard to believe today, one hundred years ago Accomack was the richest rural county in the nation. Slowly it’s been drained of its industry—agriculture—as well as its wealth and population. In an already remote region, limited employment options offer little in the way of opportunity. A mesmerizing and crucial panorama with nationwide implications, American Fire asks what happens when a community gets left behind. Hesse brings to life the Eastern Shore and its inhabitants, battling a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. The result evokes the soul of rural America—a land half gutted before the fires even began.Trade Review"American Fire is an excellent summer vacation companion. It has all the elements of a lively crime procedural: courtroom drama, forensic trivia, toothsome gossip, vexed sex. It also happens to be a very good portrait of a region in economic decline. . . . As with “S-Town” and the best episodes of “This American Life,” Hesse has managed to wring tension and excitement out of a story with a known ending." -- Jennifer Senior - New York Times"The propulsive pleasure of American Fire rests in author Monica Hesse's decision not to force a thing. The book has the brisk diligence of big-city journalism (Hesse writes for the Washington Post) and the languid chattiness of the small town where she lived while researching it. . . . Hesse gathers the pieces but leaves connections to the reader. When they snap together, the feeling is a bit like gazing upon a blaze you've just lit." -- Karl Vick - Time"Hesse, who covered the arsons for The Washington Post, is an ace reporter, but she’s an even better storyteller. American Fire is as propulsive as a crime thriller. A-" -- Tina Jordan - Entertainment Weekly"In American Fire, journalist Monica Hesse faces . . . quandaries of interpretation, faulty memory and lies, and deals eloquently with the he-said-she-said elements of her story. . . . What emerges is a vivid depiction of a community that is struggling economically in present-day America, but is rich in its human connections." -- Ilana Masad - NPR.org"A brisk, captivating and expertly crafted reconstruction of a community living through a time of fear, confusion and danger. . . . Masterful." -- Scott W. Berg - Washington Post"One of the year's best and most unusual true-crime books." -- Randy Dotinga - Christian Science Monitor"Mesmerizing. . . . Hesse recounts the fires and their investigation and the subsequent trials with cinematic immediacy." -- Jonathan Miles - Garden & Gun"Accomack County, Virginia, is utterly unique, but not completely atypical of America’s forgotten places: bypassed by progress on the wrong side of Chesapeake Bay, dotted with houses rotting into literal tinder. Hesse, a Washington Post reporter, finds true-crime gold here . . . . Hesse forgoes paint-by-numbers suspense, revealing the culprits early on before backing up into their hard-knock love story, their eventual arrest, and perceptive snapshots of an unusually vivid corner of drug-racked Red America." -- Boris Katchka - Vulture"American Fire is not only a twisted love story but also a portrait of Accomack County, Virginia, a once-wealthy farming community crumbling from economic hardship." -- Nora Horvath - Real Simple"Hesse enters the compelling narrative with restraint in probing, essayistic analyses. She tells the story of the fires and of the Eastern Shore and the people she got to know there with an earned familiarity that, at the same time, speaks of the unknowability of a vast, rapidly changing nation." -- Annie Bostrom - Booklist, starred review"A captivating narrative about arson, persistent law enforcers, an unlikely romantic relationship, and a courtroom drama. . . . Throughout, the author offers a nuanced portrait of a way of life unknown to most who have never resided on or visited the Eastern Shore. A true-crime saga that works in every respect." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review"Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse has created a near-masterpiece in American Fire. This true crime book — about a series of arsons on the rural Virginia coast and the Bonnie-and-Clyde duo who committed them — is not just about the crimes themselves, but about the community those crimes affected. It's well-written and eye-opening, and I couldn't put it down. For fans of Hillbilly Elegy and In Cold Blood." -- Annie Butterworth Jones - Tallahassee Democrat"Washington Post reporter Hesse leads readers on an extended tour of a bizarre five-month crime spree in rural Accomack County, Va.: a series of over 80 arsons, of predominantly abandoned buildings, committed by a local couple. . . . A page-turning story of love gone off the rails." -- Publishers Weekly"American Fire is a wonderful book of page-turning, true-crime reportage, exquisitely reported with both humanity and humor. Books like this remind us, in an uncertain time, of what journalism is supposed to look like." -- Nick Reding, author of Methland"America in decline, a love gone berserk, and fire…lots and lots of it. If you pick up this book and open it to the first page, I double-dog dare you to put it down." -- Dennis Covington, author of Salvation on Sand Mountain"A rare combination of reportorial know-how and literary flair, American Fire is a page-turner. Crimes and chaos, detectives and firefighters, headlines and red herrings, and it all boils down to a Gothic love story gone wrong. You need time to investigate a story like this, following the police leads all the way to the hidden-in-plain-sight, off-kilter individuals generating the mayhem; you need space to tell a story like this, fact-based and evocative. People who think they don’t like nonfiction will devour this book. People who love nonfiction will love it, too." -- Melissa Fay Greene, author of Praying for Sheetrock and The Underdogs
£18.99
University of South Carolina Press Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South:
Book SynopsisAn inside look at why the Republican Party has come to dominate the rural American South Beginning with the Dixiecrat Revolt of 1948 and extending through the 2020 election cycle, political scientists M.V. Hood III and Seth C. McKee trace the process by which rural white southerners transformed from fiercely loyal Democrats to stalwart Republicans. While these rural white southerners were the slowest to affiliate with the Grand Old Party, they are now its staunchest supporters. This transition and the reasons for it are vital to understanding the current electoral landscape of the American South, including states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, all of which have the potential to exert enormous influence over national electoral outcomes.In this first book-length empirically based study focusing on rural southern voters, Hood and McKee examine their changing political behavior, arguing that their Democratic-to-Republican transition is both more recent and more durable than most political observers realize. By analyzing data collected from their own region-wide polling along with a variety of other carefully mined sources, the authors explain why the initial appeal of 1950s Republicanism to upscale white southerners in metropolitan settings took well over a half-century to yield to, and morph into, its culturally conservative variant now championed by rural residents. Hood and McKee contend that it is impossible to understand current American electoral politics without understanding the longer trajectory of voting behavior in rural America and they offer not only a framework but also the data necessary for doing so.
£73.15
University of South Carolina Press Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South:
Book SynopsisAn inside look at why the Republican Party has come to dominate the rural American South Beginning with the Dixiecrat Revolt of 1948 and extending through the 2020 election cycle, political scientists M.V. Hood III and Seth C. McKee trace the process by which rural white southerners transformed from fiercely loyal Democrats to stalwart Republicans. While these rural white southerners were the slowest to affiliate with the Grand Old Party, they are now its staunchest supporters. This transition and the reasons for it are vital to understanding the current electoral landscape of the American South, including states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, all of which have the potential to exert enormous influence over national electoral outcomes.In this first book-length empirically based study focusing on rural southern voters, Hood and McKee examine their changing political behavior, arguing that their Democratic-to-Republican transition is both more recent and more durable than most political observers realize. By analyzing data collected from their own region-wide polling along with a variety of other carefully mined sources, the authors explain why the initial appeal of 1950s Republicanism to upscale white southerners in metropolitan settings took well over a half-century to yield to, and morph into, its culturally conservative variant now championed by rural residents. Hood and McKee contend that it is impossible to understand current American electoral politics without understanding the longer trajectory of voting behavior in rural America and they offer not only a framework but also the data necessary for doing so.
£23.36
Information Age Publishing Cultivating Rural Education
Book SynopsisRural life is more complex than it is perhaps credited. This edited volume explores several themes that highlight such complexities, particularly in terms of what they imply for rural teaching and learning. These themes include the geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic diversity within and across rural communities; the notion that rurality is not a deficit but rather a context; and the array of novel and interesting ways to build upon rural assets and overcome challenges so that rural students are not afforded fewer educational opportunities simply by virtue of their zip code. More practically, this book offers counsel for readers who may be interested in learning more about rural circumstances so that they can make informed and responsive decisions about policies and programs targeting rural students, educators, and schools.Trade ReviewMaking appropriate decisions about policy and practice in rural education settings demands an understanding of rural communities and the nuances of rural lifeways that are not standard fare in most decision-makers' professional backgrounds and preparation. This book clearly and insightfully helps guide readers to those understandings, offering a valuable resource both for individuals with nonrural backgrounds (as a thorough introduction to the salient contexts of rural education) and for those with rural backgrounds (as a guide for framing/reframing and clarifying their existing understandings)."" — Jerry D. Johnson, Professor and Lydia E. Skeen, Endowed Chair in Education, Kansas State University""Howley and Redding have co-edited a book that brings to life the complexity of rural people and places and helps readers understand what this complexity means for rural education. The range of voices and research in Cultivating Rural Education demonstrates how varied rural places are, how real the educational challenges rural schools and districts face are, and how much strength and ingenuity rural people bring to the table to address those challenges."" — Robert Mahaffey, Executive Director, Rural School and Community Trust""The book Cultivating Rural Education gives an actionable planning process to understand, define, and cultivate our rural schools and communities. The community and school are so closely tied together, it is time for our stakeholders and community members to highlight what is right and adjust the areas that need adjusting to help save and establish a true path(s) to sustainability for Rural America."" — Allen Pratt, Executive Director, National Rural Education Association
£44.96
Information Age Publishing Cultivating Rural Education
Book SynopsisRural life is more complex than it is perhaps credited. This edited volume explores several themes that highlight such complexities, particularly in terms of what they imply for rural teaching and learning. These themes include the geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic diversity within and across rural communities; the notion that rurality is not a deficit but rather a context; and the array of novel and interesting ways to build upon rural assets and overcome challenges so that rural students are not afforded fewer educational opportunities simply by virtue of their zip code. More practically, this book offers counsel for readers who may be interested in learning more about rural circumstances so that they can make informed and responsive decisions about policies and programs targeting rural students, educators, and schools.Trade ReviewMaking appropriate decisions about policy and practice in rural education settings demands an understanding of rural communities and the nuances of rural lifeways that are not standard fare in most decision-makers' professional backgrounds and preparation. This book clearly and insightfully helps guide readers to those understandings, offering a valuable resource both for individuals with nonrural backgrounds (as a thorough introduction to the salient contexts of rural education) and for those with rural backgrounds (as a guide for framing/reframing and clarifying their existing understandings)."" — Jerry D. Johnson, Professor and Lydia E. Skeen, Endowed Chair in Education, Kansas State University""Howley and Redding have co-edited a book that brings to life the complexity of rural people and places and helps readers understand what this complexity means for rural education. The range of voices and research in Cultivating Rural Education demonstrates how varied rural places are, how real the educational challenges rural schools and districts face are, and how much strength and ingenuity rural people bring to the table to address those challenges."" — Robert Mahaffey, Executive Director, Rural School and Community Trust""The book Cultivating Rural Education gives an actionable planning process to understand, define, and cultivate our rural schools and communities. The community and school are so closely tied together, it is time for our stakeholders and community members to highlight what is right and adjust the areas that need adjusting to help save and establish a true path(s) to sustainability for Rural America."" — Allen Pratt, Executive Director, National Rural Education Association
£82.80
Information Age Publishing How Did We Get Here?: The Decay of the Teaching
Book SynopsisTeacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red, convened at the state capital in downtown Columbia, SC (Bowers, 2019b). This statewide teacher walkout was assembled to call for the improvement of teachers' working conditions and the learning conditions of their students. The gathering was the largest display of teacher activism in the history of South Carolina and reflected a trend in a larger wave of teacher walkouts that have rippled across the nation over the last five years. The crowd comprised teachers from across South Carolina, who walked out of their classrooms for the gathering, as well as numerous students, parents, university faculty, and other community members that rallied with teachers in solidarity.Undergirding this walkout and others that took hold across the country is a perennial and pervasive pattern of unfavorable teacher working conditions that have contributed to what some are calling a teacher shortage "crisis" (Chuck, 2019). We have focused our work specifically on the illustrative case of South Carolina, given the extreme teacher staffing challenges the state is facing. Across numerous metrics, the South Carolina teacher shortage has reached critical levels, influenced by teacher recruitment and retention challenges. For instance, the number of teacher education program completers has declined annually, dropping from 2,060 in 2014-15 to 1,642 in the 2018-19 school year. Meanwhile, the number of teachers leaving the teaching field has increased from 4,108.1 to 5,341.3 across that same period (CERRA, 2019). These trends are likely to continue as COVID-19 has put additional pressure on the already fragile teacher labor market.Some of the hardest-to-staff districts are often located in communities with the highest diversity and poverty. To prosper and progress, reformers and public stakeholders must have a vested interest in maintaining full classrooms and strengthening the teaching workforce. An important element of progress towards tackling these longstanding challenges is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. While teacher shortages are occurring nationwide (Garcia & Weiss, 2019), how they manifest regionally is directly influenced by its localized historical context and the evolution of the teaching profession's reputation within a state. Thus, the impetus of this book is to use South Carolina as an illustrative example to discuss the context and evolution that has shaped the status of the teaching profession that has led to a boiling point of mass teacher shortages and the rise of historic teacher walkouts.
£54.15
Information Age Publishing How Did We Get Here?: The Decay of the Teaching
Book SynopsisTeacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red, convened at the state capital in downtown Columbia, SC (Bowers, 2019b). This statewide teacher walkout was assembled to call for the improvement of teachers' working conditions and the learning conditions of their students. The gathering was the largest display of teacher activism in the history of South Carolina and reflected a trend in a larger wave of teacher walkouts that have rippled across the nation over the last five years. The crowd comprised teachers from across South Carolina, who walked out of their classrooms for the gathering, as well as numerous students, parents, university faculty, and other community members that rallied with teachers in solidarity.Undergirding this walkout and others that took hold across the country is a perennial and pervasive pattern of unfavorable teacher working conditions that have contributed to what some are calling a teacher shortage "crisis" (Chuck, 2019). We have focused our work specifically on the illustrative case of South Carolina, given the extreme teacher staffing challenges the state is facing. Across numerous metrics, the South Carolina teacher shortage has reached critical levels, influenced by teacher recruitment and retention challenges. For instance, the number of teacher education program completers has declined annually, dropping from 2,060 in 2014-15 to 1,642 in the 2018-19 school year. Meanwhile, the number of teachers leaving the teaching field has increased from 4,108.1 to 5,341.3 across that same period (CERRA, 2019). These trends are likely to continue as COVID-19 has put additional pressure on the already fragile teacher labor market.Some of the hardest-to-staff districts are often located in communities with the highest diversity and poverty. To prosper and progress, reformers and public stakeholders must have a vested interest in maintaining full classrooms and strengthening the teaching workforce. An important element of progress towards tackling these longstanding challenges is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. While teacher shortages are occurring nationwide (Garcia & Weiss, 2019), how they manifest regionally is directly influenced by its localized historical context and the evolution of the teaching profession's reputation within a state. Thus, the impetus of this book is to use South Carolina as an illustrative example to discuss the context and evolution that has shaped the status of the teaching profession that has led to a boiling point of mass teacher shortages and the rise of historic teacher walkouts.
£91.80
Information Age Publishing Educational Opportunity in Rural Contexts: The
Book SynopsisThe impetus behind this volume stems from reflections on commemorations of the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. Brown turned 60 in May of 2014, and many special issues of peer?reviewed journals were dedicated to that anniversary. Unlike most special issues and volumes, we sought to highlight a smaller part of Brown, though no less significant. More specifically, we thought to develop a volume that focused on rural education in the aftermath of the decision. Most of the education policy and education reform literature caters to urban and suburban contexts, and very few academic books and journal articles—with the exception of research conducted by Craig, Amy, and Caitlin Howley and the Journal for Research on Rural Education—focus on rural education in the US. Thus, we wanted this volume to focus on the politics of educational opportunity in rural contexts.There is a paucity of rigorous research that examines how education policy affects the conditions of rural education. More specifically, research is scarce in examining the ways in which students in rural schools and districts have access to educational opportunities, although approximately one?third of all public schools are located in rural areas (Ayers, 2011). Educational opportunity in rural districts has been plagued by geographic isolation, loss of economic bases, and lack of capital (both financial and political) to voice the need for resources. To be clear, this volume does not present chapters that detail educational opportunity in rural districts and schools from a deficit perspective. Instead, chapters in this volume offer insight into both micro? and macro?level policies and practices that shape educational opportunities for students in rural schools and districts. As such, chapters in this volume investigate the “now” of educational opportunity for rural students and makes recommendations and suggestions for “later”. Given that, we are reminded of James Coleman’s (1975) thesis, “Education is a means to an end, and equal opportunity refers to later in life rather than the educational process itself” (p.28).This book will be organized into two distinct sections. The first section, comprised of chapters that examine educational opportunity in rural districts from a micro?level perspective, is devoted to chapters that broadly examine the implications of state and federal policy on educational opportunity in rural schools and districts. The second section, which includes case studies of rural districts in the American South, Appalachia, and the Northeast, takes a macro?level approach to examining educational opportunity in rural districts. Combined, chapters throughout the book provide readers with both an overview and a specific snapshot of educational opportunity in rural schools. Given the breadth and scope of chapters included in this volume, we believe the book adds tremendously to the education policy literature, as this vantage point has rarely been included in larger education policy discussions.
£44.96
Information Age Publishing Educational Opportunity in Rural Contexts: The
Book SynopsisThe impetus behind this volume stems from reflections on commemorations of the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. Brown turned 60 in May of 2014, and many special issues of peer?reviewed journals were dedicated to that anniversary. Unlike most special issues and volumes, we sought to highlight a smaller part of Brown, though no less significant. More specifically, we thought to develop a volume that focused on rural education in the aftermath of the decision. Most of the education policy and education reform literature caters to urban and suburban contexts, and very few academic books and journal articles—with the exception of research conducted by Craig, Amy, and Caitlin Howley and the Journal for Research on Rural Education—focus on rural education in the US. Thus, we wanted this volume to focus on the politics of educational opportunity in rural contexts.There is a paucity of rigorous research that examines how education policy affects the conditions of rural education. More specifically, research is scarce in examining the ways in which students in rural schools and districts have access to educational opportunities, although approximately one?third of all public schools are located in rural areas (Ayers, 2011). Educational opportunity in rural districts has been plagued by geographic isolation, loss of economic bases, and lack of capital (both financial and political) to voice the need for resources. To be clear, this volume does not present chapters that detail educational opportunity in rural districts and schools from a deficit perspective. Instead, chapters in this volume offer insight into both micro? and macro?level policies and practices that shape educational opportunities for students in rural schools and districts. As such, chapters in this volume investigate the “now” of educational opportunity for rural students and makes recommendations and suggestions for “later”. Given that, we are reminded of James Coleman’s (1975) thesis, “Education is a means to an end, and equal opportunity refers to later in life rather than the educational process itself” (p.28).This book will be organized into two distinct sections. The first section, comprised of chapters that examine educational opportunity in rural districts from a micro?level perspective, is devoted to chapters that broadly examine the implications of state and federal policy on educational opportunity in rural schools and districts. The second section, which includes case studies of rural districts in the American South, Appalachia, and the Northeast, takes a macro?level approach to examining educational opportunity in rural districts. Combined, chapters throughout the book provide readers with both an overview and a specific snapshot of educational opportunity in rural schools. Given the breadth and scope of chapters included in this volume, we believe the book adds tremendously to the education policy literature, as this vantage point has rarely been included in larger education policy discussions.
£82.80
Harvard Educational Publishing Group Rural Education in America: What Works for Our Students, Teachers, and Communities
Book SynopsisRural Education in America provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the diversity and complexity of rural communities in the United States and for helping rural educators implement and evaluate successful place-based programs tailored for students and their families. Written by educators who grew up in rural America and returned there to raise their children, the book illustrates how efficacy is determined by the degrees to which instruction, interventions, and programs address the needs and strengths of each unique rural community. Geoff and Sky Marietta weave research, compelling case studies, and personal experience to illustrate effective approaches along the P-16 pipeline. Emphasizing the value and vitality of these communities, the authors advocate for solutions that fit the sociocultural and historical reality of the community, rather than strategies that fundamentally support out-migration. They also provide tools that can be used to evaluate rural educational initiatives and implement place-based strategies that are aligned with the strengths of a particular community.Rural Education in America includes examples from a range of geographic locations, including Eastern Washington, Montana, Ohio, northern Minnesota, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, and the Navajo Nation. Core chapters focus on critical issues for advancing rural education including early literacy, STEM education, and college completion while highlighting successful programs and partnerships in these areas. This book presents a vision of what rural education can be and how it can attend to the well-being of the people, places, and regions that it serves.
£27.16
CABI Publishing Rural Women in Leadership: Positive Factors in
Book Synopsis* Takes a new slant on an increasingly important development issue * There is a noticeable gap in extant literature concerning positive factors beneficial to rural women’s leadership development. This book addresses that gap through a concentrated focus on the presence of such positive factors and the ways in which they contribute to the success of rural women in overcoming barriers to leadership. * The dynamic relationship of External and Internal Factors is highlighted through distillation into five Key Factors cited by rural women as not only supportive of their leadership development, but also as crucial to the development of aspiring rural women leaders.Table of ContentsA: Introduction 1: Situating the Study: A Review of Relevant Literature 2: Introducing the Methodology and Participants 3: Setting a Baseline: Case Studies 4: Listening Closely: External, Internal and Key Factors B: Conclusions
£86.94
CABI Publishing Gender and Rural Globalization: International
Book SynopsisThis book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalized world. It analyses their development in specific places and the effects of the increasing connectedness and mobility of people. It integrates global experiences by discussing mobility, agriculture, gender identities and international development. Each theme is introduced with an overview of the state of the art in that specific area and integrates the case studies that follow. The contributors present empirical work from the global north and south and, more particularly, Sweden, Norway, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, UK, Poland, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, India, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. The first section explores gender differences in mobility patterns and analyses how mobility affects rural gender identities and relations. The second section focuses on the development of agricultural and rural policies, the response of individuals within farm households, and the implications for gender relations in rural areas. The third section focuses on the construction of identities and the changes occurring in the definition of rural femininity and masculinity as a result of rural transformations. The fourth section examines the role of international development policies in advancing women's well-being in the less developed parts of the world, and some of the unintended consequences of such interventions. The book closes with conclusions and reflections on the position of gender in rural research agendas and in rural academia more generally. Key features: · Empircal work from a wide range of geographical areas · Examines how gender identities are constructed in rural agriculture · Considers how effective development policies are in improving women's well-being This book will be of interest to researchers in rural development and gender issues in the global North and South, and to students of rural sociology, social geography, development studies and gender studies.Table of Contents1: Gender and Rural Globalization: An Introduction to International Perspectives on Gender and Rural Development 2: Gender and Mobility 3: Women’s Migration for Work: The Case of Ukrainian Caregivers in Rural Italy 4: Gender, Migration and Rural Livelihoods in Uzbekistan in Times of Change 5: ‘There is Dignity only with Livestock’: Land Grabbing and the Changing Social Practices of Pastoralist Women in Gujarat, India 6: Gender and Rural Migration in Mexico and the Caribbean 7: Gender and Agriculture 8: The Genderness of Climate Change, Australia 9: Where Family, Farm and Society Intersect: Values of Women Farmers in Sweden 10: Women Farmers and Agricultural Extension/Education in Slovenia and Greece 11: The Agency Paradox: The Impact of Gender(ed) Frameworks on Irish Farm Youth 12: Rurality and Gender Identity 13: Rural Women Leaders: Identity Formation in Rural Northern Ireland 14: Gender Identities and Divorce among Farmers in Norway 15: Merging Masculinities: Exploring Intersecting Masculine Identities on Family Farms 16: Creating ‘Masculine’ Spaces for ‘Feminine’ Emotions – Men and Social Inclusion 17: Gender Desegregation among Village Representatives in Poland: Towards Breaking the Male Domination in Local Politics? 18: Gender and International Development 19: Gender Transitions in Agriculture and Food Systems 20: ‘Glocal’ Networking for Gender Equality and Sustainable Livelihoods 21: Sugar and Gender Relations in Malawi 22: The Role of Gender Indicators in Rural Development Programmes 23: Beneficial for Women? Global Trends in Gender, Land and Titling 24: Conclusions – Future Directions
£96.84
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Turbulent Foresters : A Landscape Biography of
Book SynopsisA richly detailed history of Ashdown Forest -- home of Winnie-the-Pooh. The seeming tranquility of many rural landscapes can hide a combative history. This biography of one such landscape, Ashdown Forest in the Weald of Sussex, exemplifies the evolving conflicts that have taken place over many centuries. Wealth and poverty, power and exclusion, have all characterised this landscape through the ages. When a thirteenth-century boundary was erected to form a hunting park it was imposed upon a landscape which for centuries had provided sustenance for peasant families, for swine herds, for itinerant groups, all of whom had developed grazing and collecting rights and customary ties with the area. Conflict between manorial lords and commoners, "turbulent foresters", was born, and the evolution of this conflict over succeeding centuries is the recurring motif of this book. We move through the exploitation of iron ore and timber during the Tudor period, learn of the real threats of enclosure, of military occupation, to be followed by a landscape aesthetic bringing wealthy incomers, attracted by scenery easily reachable from London by train. All sides felt that the Forest was theirs by right. Victorian law-suits, twentieth-century protective legislation and a growing environmental consciousness have all left their mark. And the struggle for Ashdown continues amid ongoing development pressures. This book demonstrates that multi-layered conflict has been a characteristic feature of what still miraculously remains the largest area of internationally recognised heath in the South-East of England.Trade ReviewThe book is well-produced, selectively illustrated, thoroughly referenced and intelligently indexed, as one expects of the Boydell Press. -- Local HistorianTable of ContentsList of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Editorial conventions 1. Introduction: a forest landscape 2. The Natural Capital of Ashdown 3. Ashdown before the Forest 4. Ashdown emerges and the Landscape fills up, 1086-1485 5. Society and Community on Ashdown Forest, 1500-1800 6. Ashdown's forest economy 7. Threats to Ashdown Forest 8. Victorian Ashdown: a changing setting for an escalating conflict 9. The Ashdown Forest Dispute 10. The early years of formal conservation, 1885-1914 11. Ashdown in War and Peace, 1914-1945 12. Ashdown's historic present from 1945 13. Forest conflicts: a conclusion Glossary Ashdown Forest: select Bibliography Index
£108.19
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Landless Households in Rural Europe, 1600-1900
Book SynopsisFirst comparative study of landless households brings out their major role in European history and society. The numbers of landless people - those lacking formal rights to land, or possessing only tiny smallholdings - grew rapidly across post-medieval Europe, as rural population and economic growth divided landowners and farmers from (increasingly) landless rural workers. But they have hitherto been relatively neglected, a gap which this volume, covering Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, France and Spain from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, aims to fill, making creative use of a diverse range of unexplored sources. Instead of concentrating on the well-documented cases of landholding peasants, it explores the many different experiences of the numerous rural landless. It explains how their households were formed (often in the face of economic difficulties and official hostility), how all the members of a family contributed to its survival, how the landless related to other social groups and negotiated access to vital resources, and how they adapted as rural society was changed by war, politics, agrarian and industrial development, government policy and welfare systems. Contributors: Arnau Barquer i Cerdà, John Broad, ⴕ Dieter Bruneel, Christine Fertig, Henry French, Margareth Lanzinger, Jonas Lindström, Riikka Miettinen, Richard Paping, Wouter Ronsijn, Merja Uotila, Nadine VivierTable of ContentsIntroduction - Christine Fertig, Richard Paping & Henry French 1. The treballadors of Girona: evidence of the emergence of wage labour in early modern Catalonia (16th and 17th centuries) - Arnau Barquer i Cerdà 2. The squatter economy of the English countryside - building new landless communities in England c. 1600-1900 - John Broad 3. The rise of landless households in the Dutch countryside c. 1600-1900 - Richard Paping 4. 'Gaining ground' in Flanders after the 1840s: access to land and the coping mechanisms of landless and semi-landless households, c. 1850-1900 - Wouter Ronsijn 5. Strategies of survival, landlessness, and forest settlement in Flanders: the Forest of Houthulst in a changing landscape of survival (c. 1500-1900) - † Dieter Bruneel 6. Landless and pauper households in England c. 1760-1835: A comparison of two southern English rural communities - Henry French 7. Landless rural households in France 1852-1910 - Nadine Vivier 8. Survival in a hostile agrarian regime: non-landed households in seventeenth-century Sweden and Finland - Riikka Miettinen & Jonas Lindström 9. Farming craftsmen? Access to land and the socio-economic position of rural artisans in early modern Finland - Merja Uotila 10. Landlessness and marriage restrictions: Tyrol and Vorarlberg in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - Margareth Lanzinger 11. Cottages, barns and bake houses: Landless rural households in North-western Germany in the eighteenth century - Christine Fertig
£80.75
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Settlements at the Edge: Remote Human Settlements
Book SynopsisSettlements at the Edge examines the evolution, characteristics, functions and shifting economic basis of settlements in sparsely populated areas of developed nations. With a focus on demographic change, the book features theoretical and applied cases, which explore the interface between demography, economy, wellbeing and the environment. This book offers a comprehensive and insightful knowledge base for understanding the role of population in shaping the development and histories of northern sparsely populated areas of developed nations including Alaska (USA), Australia, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other nations with territories within the Arctic Circle.In the past, many remote settlements were important bases for opening up vast areas for resource extraction, working as strategic centers and as national representations of the conquering of frontiers. With increased contemporary interest from governments, policy makers, multinational companies and other stakeholders, this book explores the importance of understanding relationships between settlement populations and the economy at the local level. It features international and expert contributors who present insightful case studies on the role of human geography, primarily population issues, in shaping the past, present and future of settlements in remote areas. They also provide analysis on opportunities and challenges for northern settlements and the effects of climate change, resource futures, and tourism. A chapter on the issues of populating future space settlements highlights that many issues for settlement change and functions in isolated and remote spatial realms are universal. This book will appeal to those interested in the past, present and future importance of settlements 'at the edge' of developed nations as well as those working in policy and program contexts. College students enrolled in courses such as demography, population studies, human studies, regional development, social policy and/or economics will find value in this book as well.Contributors include: P. Berggren, D. Bird, O.J. Borch, A. Boyle, H. Brokensha, F. Brouard, D. Carson, D. Carson, T. Carter, B. Charters, J. Cleary, J. Cokley, S. de la Barre, W. Edwards, S. Eikeland, M. Eimermann, P.C. Ensign, J. Garrett, G. Gísladóttir, K. Golebiowska, J. Guenther, P. Hanrick, L. Harbo, S. Harwood, P. Heinrich, L. Huskey, G. Jóhannesdóttir, I. Kelman, A. Koch, N. Krasnoshtanova, V. Kuklina, J. Lovell, R. Marjavaara, M. McAuliffe, R. McLeman, J.J. McMurtry, T. Nilsen, L.M. Nilsson, P. Peters, A. Petrov, G. Pétursdóttir, B. Prideaux, W. Rankin, J. Roto, J. Salmon, G. Saxinger, A. Schoo, P. Sköld, A. Taylor, M. Thompson, P. Timony, A. Vuin, M. Warg Næss, E. Wenghofer, E. Wensing, D.R. White, D ZoellnerTrade Review'This book is truly international in relevance and its authorship - with over 50 authors from at least 10 different countries. The topics covered are wide-ranging yet comprehensive and unified by an interesting descriptive theory (the 8 D's of Beyond Periphery). The book's contents, and the 8D's theory in particular, should be essential reading and provide rich food for thought (and possibly debate) for anyone researching the demographics or economics of remote communities, or more generally anyone grappling with the complexities of trying to contribute to sustainable futures for these communities.' --Anthony Barnes, Charles Darwin University, AustraliaTable of ContentsContents: Foreword by Tomas Mörtsell Preface PART I SETTLEMENT HISTORIES AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS 1 Introduction: settlements at the edge Andrew Taylor 2 The dynamic history of government settlements at the edge Lee Huskey and Andrew Taylor 3 Boom back or blow back? Growth strategies in mono-industrial resource towns – ‘east’ and ‘west’ Gertrude Saxinger, Andrey Petrov, Natalia Krasnoshtanova, Vera Kuklina and Doris A. Carson 4 International migration and the changing nature of settlements at the edge Kate Golebiowska, Tom Carter, Alicia Boyle and Andrew Taylor 5 Gender matters: the importance of gender to settlements at the edge of the Nordic Arctic Lisbeth Harbo and Johanna Roto 6 Place-based planning in remote regions: Cape York Peninsula, Australia and Nunavut, Canada Sharon Harwood, Ed Wensing and Prescott C. Ensign PART II UNDERSTANDING SETTLEMENT POPULATIONS IN SPARSELY POPULATED AREAS 7 Sources of data for settlement level analyses in sparsely populated areas Paul Peters, Andrew Taylor, Dean B. Carson and Huw Brokensha 8 New mobilities – new economies? Temporary populations and local innovation capacity in sparsely populated areas Doris A. Carson, Jen Cleary, Suzanne de la Barre, Marco Eimermann and Roger Marjavaara 9 Land rights and their influence on settlement patterns Jan Salmon and Wayne Edwards 10 Re-evolution of growth pole settlements in northern peripheries? Reflecting the emergence of an LNG hub in Northern Australia with experiences from Northern Norway Sveinung Eikeland, Trond Nilsen and Andrew Taylor 11 Contemporary Aboriginal settlements: understanding mixed-market approaches Judith Lovell, Don Zoellner, John Guenther, François Brouard and J.J. McMurtry 12 Modelling settlement futures: techniques and challenges Paul Peters, Andrew Taylor, Dean B. Carson and Andreas Koch PART III FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR SETTLEMENTS AT THE EDGE 13 Climate change and settlement level impacts Deanne Bird, Robert McLeman, Gudrún Gísladóttir, Ilan Kelman, Marius Warg Næss and Gurun Jóhannesdóttir 14 Recruitment and retention of professional labour: the health workforce at settlement level Dean B. Carson, Elizabeth Wenghofer, Patrick Timony, Adrian Schoo, Peter Berggren and Brian Charters 15 Renewing and re-invigorating settlements: a role for tourism? Bruce Prideaux, Michelle Thompson and Sharon Harwood 16 The local demography of resource economies: long-term implications of natural resource industries for demographic development in sparsely populated areas Dean B. Carson, Peter Sköld, Doris A. Carson and Lena Maria Nilsson 17 Entrepreneurship and innovation at the edge: creating inducements for people and place Prescott C. Ensign and Odd Jarl Borch 18 The ultimate edge: the case for planning media for sustaining space communities John Cokley, William Rankin, Marisha McAuliffe, Pauline Heinrich and Phillipa Hanrick 19 Conclusion Dean B. Carson Index
£153.00
CABI Publishing Digital Technologies for Agricultural and Rural
Book SynopsisThis 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.Table of ContentsSection 1: Creating and Sharing Knowledge 1: Mobile Phone Applications for Weather and Climate Information for Smallholder Farmer Decision Making 2: Smartphones Supporting Monitoring Functions: Experiences from Sweet Potato Vine Distribution in sub-Saharan Africa 3: Customized Information Delivery for Dryland Farmers 4: mNutrition: Experiences and Lessons Learned in Content Development Section 2: Information and Knowledge Intermediaries 5: Introducting a Technology Stewardship Model to Encourage ICT Adoption in Agricultural Communities of Practice: Reflections on a Canada/Sri Lanka Partnership Project 6: Reducing Transaction Costs in Contract Farming Arrangements: the Case of Farmforce 7: Adoption of ICT Products and Services among Rice Farmers in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone 8: The Effect of ICTs on Agricultural Distribution Channels in Mexico Section 3: Facilitating Change in Agricultural Systems 9: Towards Alternate Theories of Change for M4ARD 10: Mobile for Agriculture (m4Agric) Services: Evidence from East Africa 11: Understanding the Impacts of Mobile Technology on Smallholder Agriculture 12: Farmerline: a For-profit Agtech Company with a Social Mission 13: Best Practice Lessons and Sources of Further Information
£93.87
CABI Publishing Digital Technologies for Agricultural and Rural
Book SynopsisThis 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.Table of ContentsSection 1: Creating and Sharing Knowledge 1: Mobile Phone Applications for Weather and Climate Information for Smallholder Farmer Decision Making 2: Smartphones Supporting Monitoring Functions: Experiences from Sweet Potato Vine Distribution in sub-Saharan Africa 3: Customized Information Delivery for Dryland Farmers 4: mNutrition: Experiences and Lessons Learned in Content Development Section 2: Information and Knowledge Intermediaries 5: Introducting a Technology Stewardship Model to Encourage ICT Adoption in Agricultural Communities of Practice: Reflections on a Canada/Sri Lanka Partnership Project 6: Reducing Transaction Costs in Contract Farming Arrangements: the Case of Farmforce 7: Adoption of ICT Products and Services among Rice Farmers in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone 8: The Effect of ICTs on Agricultural Distribution Channels in Mexico Section 3: Facilitating Change in Agricultural Systems 9: Towards Alternate Theories of Change for M4ARD 10: Mobile for Agriculture (m4Agric) Services: Evidence from East Africa 11: Understanding the Impacts of Mobile Technology on Smallholder Agriculture 12: Farmerline: a For-profit Agtech Company with a Social Mission 13: Best Practice Lessons and Sources of Further Information
£39.14
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Communities, Land and Social Innovation: Land
Book SynopsisThis timely and thought-provoking book examines the contemporary struggle of communities over land ownership and use rights in rapidly urbanising areas. Analysing 12 key case studies from across four continents, it demonstrates changes in land and housing tenancy systems, showing how communities have revolted against the land hunger of speculators, agrobusiness and technocratic local authorities. Contributions from an international team of researchers, policy analysts and experts explore both neoliberal urban development policies and socially innovative initiatives, discussing different modes of solidarity action and commons building to ensure both access to land and housing security. Chapters also introduce a critical governance perspective to land tenure dynamics and examine the increasingly prominent hybridisation of land use rights systems and land markets, providing a state-of-the-art reflection of the field and contributing to an agenda for future research, policy and practice. Academics studying urban and regional planning, social innovation, and commoning will find this book to be essential reading. It will also interest policy makers and civil society organisations looking for a stronger understanding of land dynamics and urbanisation in order to set up new forms of land governance. Contributors include: P. Abramo, A.M. Brown, N. Busscher, N. Carofilis, C. Collado Solís, V. d'Auria Anitha, C.E. Estrada, L.A. Flores Hernandez, E.T. Gbeckor-Kove, A. Hasan, I. Hiergens, R. Krueger, A. Mehmood, L. Miranda, F. Moulaert, O.A. Nyapala, B. Pak, C. Parra, G. Payne, O. Peek, M. Quintana Molina, A. Sadiq, K. Scheerlinck, A. Suseelan, PVK Rameshwar, C. Tavares e Silva, G. Testori, S. Ud Din Ahmed, P. Van den Broeck, H. VerschureTrade Review‘The important and welcome contribution of the book is in enriching the studies of the politics of urbanization with multiple new case-studies from under-studied locations. The research locations presented in the book are abundant. Such a diversity enables us to explore various points along the spectrum of issues of community, housing, and land that characterize so much of the current urban processes.’ -- Tomer Dekel, Geography Research Forum'This interesting book offers a diversity of understandings of how joint efforts to access land and land tenure enable communities and empower them to be part of their own governance, not only through the official land development and planning processes but also through informal, collective and complex community social innovations. A must read for those who are interested in understanding the processes of land development through a new, community focussed lens.' --Tuna Tasan-Kok, University of Amsterdam, the NetherlandsTable of ContentsContents: 1 The hybrid of land taking and land making 1 Pieter Van den Broeck, Asiya Sadiq, Ide Hiergens, Monica Quintana Molina, Han Verschure and Frank Moulaert 2 The COMP-FUSE city: informal land market and urban structure in Latin American Metropolises 18 Pedro Abramo 3 Options for intervention: increasing tenure security for community development and urban transformation 41 Geoffrey Payne 4 Analysing the governance of land grabbing from a combined political ecology and environmental justice perspective 59 Nienke Busscher, Robert Krueger and Constanza Parra 5 What we learned from HABITAT 1976 to HABITAT 2016 77 Han Verschure 6 The changing nature of informal settlements in the megapolis in South Asia: the case of Karachi, Pakistan 91 Arif Hasan 7 The hillside poor at risk? Land trafficking in Jose Carlos Mariátegui at the outskirts of Lima, Peru 109 Carlos Escalante Estrada and Liliana Miranda 8 Addressing the housing shortage without building cities: The Minha Casa Minha Vida Program, Brazil 125 Carolina Tavares e Silva 9 Urban planning, land management and the stubborn realities of informal urbanisation in peri-urban areas around Accra, Ghana 136 Eden Tekpor Gbeckor-Kove 10 Vulnerability of urban ecology of Bangalore: an examination of its contention with the politics of land administration 153 Anitha Suseelan and PVK Rameshwar 11 Co-producing alternative urban imaginaries in the contested riverbank settlements of Guayaquil, Ecuador 166 Olga Peek, Nelson Carofilis and Viviana d’Auria 12 Revisiting the Mexican Ejido: envisioning alternative land tenures in Guadalajara, Mexico 181 Luis Angel Flores Hernandez 13 Informal power structures: towards provision of services and security of tenure 195 Saeed Ud Din Ahmed, Abid Mehmood, Alison M. Brown 14 Self-government and social innovation in Atucucho, Quito 214 Giulia Testori 15 Community management of the waterfront: exploring the significance of social and cultural identity 228 Okoko Anita Nyapala 16 Challenging the agro-industrial governance of land use rights: the experience of community-supported agriculture in peri-urban Flanders 246 Carmen Collado Solís and Pieter Van den Broeck 17 Studying the interrelationship of the formal and informal processes in the making of collective spaces: the case of Place Liedts and environs, Schaerbeek, Brussels 263 Asiya Sadiq, Kris Scheerlinck and Burak Pak Index 282
£115.00
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd A Research Agenda for Global Rural Development
Book SynopsisElgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Setting out a new, path-breaking research agenda for global rural development, this timely book offers an innovative and embedded rural social science capable of both understanding and enacting progress towards diverse and sustainable pathways. It relocates rural development at the heart of global trends associated with widespread but uneven urbanisation, climate change and severe resource depletion, rising population growth, density and inequality, and global political, economic and health crises.Chapters collapse traditional binary notions of development as north-south, rural-urban, global-local and traditional modern, embracing a revised conceptualisation of uneven development as a process dependent upon multiple theoretical and conceptual frameworks. It offers potential routes for substantive, interlinked research agendas, including new ruralities, governance, land rights, agro-ecology, financialisation, power relations, family farming, and the role of markets.Scholars of geography, planning, rural sociology and rural-urban studies looking for a broader understanding of the topic will find this book essential. It will also be beneficial for those engaged in rural development policy and practice.Trade Review‘This book makes an interesting contribution to rural studies, informed by a solid grounding in the history of the discipline. It is surely correct to work toward eroding the division between rural and urban studies and the book provides a good guide to anyone looking for a broad description of the issues facing global development.’ -- Selyf Morgan, Eurasian Geography and Economics‘This book makes a significant and valuable contribution to interdisciplinary rural studies. It centres the rural and rurality while breaking down barriers, divides and binaries between the rural and the urban. It identifies key areas of rural research, as well as their relevant debates and bodies of literature, which will be indispensable for anyone interested in researching or working in and on rural spaces and places.’ -- Miles Kenney-Lazar, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography'Rural spaces, while still under-threat, also represent sites of incredible experimentation, innovation and resistance. In an era of growing ecological and economic crisis, this book represents a much needed addition to the literature showing rurality as site for contestation and socio-ecological redemption.' --Michael Carolan, Colorado State University, USTable of ContentsContents: Introduction 1. New ruralities and centralities for rural development 2. Changing questions of governance: reflexive and disruptive governance in the Anthropocene 3. New power configurations and transformations 4. Financialization and nested vulnerabilities. The rise of fictitious capital in placing agrarian change 5. Re-claiming land: questions of land rights and the management of the biosphere 6. Agroecology: a new paradigm for rural development? 7. Family farming in changing agricultural social structures 8. The power of the new markets Conclusions References Index
£104.00
CABI Publishing Peer-to-peer Accommodation and Community
Book SynopsisThe growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation has been remarkable. However, the rapid expansion of the phenomenon has yielded several concerns over its potentially negative economic, social and environmental impacts. These impacts are highlighted in policy agendas as an emerging problem encountered by many local communities in destinations experiencing a boom in P2P accommodation. Specifically, concerns have been raised over the impact of the growth of P2P accommodation on local housing markets, residents' well-being and the environment as a result of the touristification of residential areas. In fact, many observers accuse P2P accommodation of fuelling the 'overtourism' problem that several destinations face. This edited book addresses the need to examine the P2P accommodation phenomenon from a community resilience lens. In particular, through a collection of chapters presenting a range of empirical and conceptual perspectives from urban and rural communities, the book considers the implications of P2P accommodation growth on the resilience of local communities and the sustainable development of places. This book highlights: · The rapid growth of P2P accommodation yields economic, social and environmental negative impacts on destinations. · The P2P accommodation sector is evolving towards professionalization which, in turns, creates further implications for local community resilience. · This book draws attention towards the need to examine the nexus between P2P accommodation, sustainability and local community resilience. · The collection of chapters presents empirical and conceptual perspectives from urban and rural communities. · Chapters impart significant insights to policymakers, practitioners and academics in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Mobile Gentrifiers and Leavers: Tourist Dwelling as an Agent of Exclusion in Barcelona Chapter 2: Social Exchanges and P2P accommodation: Residents’ Perceptions in a Neighbourhood Context Chapter 3: Airbnb Host Responsibilities and Community Resilience: The case of Japan Chapter 4: Peer-to-peer accommodation and resilient hosts in Split: The case of Radunica Street Chapter 5: Perceived impacts of STRs in the local community in the United Kingdom Chapter 6: Airbnb guests’ pro-environmental behaviour and community resilience: Mitigating the negative impacts of Airbnb tourism Chapter 7: Reframing rurality: the impact of Airbnb on second home communities in Wales and Sweden Chapter 8: Local Commitment and Withdrawal in Wake of Conspicuous Airbnb-Place Dynamics on a Cold-Water Island Chapter 9: P2P Accommodation as a Peacebuilding Tool: Community Resilience and Group Membership Chapter 10: “Not in my stairway”: How do neighbours cope with P2P rentals in housing cooperatives? Chapter 11: Understanding the Airbnb community and its community impact. The use of scenarios to build resilience
£79.56
