Rural sociology: Difference between revisions

[[File:Boy plowing with a tractor at sunset in Don Det, Laos.jpg|alt=Boy plowing with a tractor at sunset in Don Det, Laos.|thumb|300x300px|Boy plowing with a tractor at sunset in [[Don Det]], [[Laos]].]]

While the definition of rurality in Europe has traditionally included all “non-urban” spaces academia’s definition of the term is in flux as more residents move to liminal spaces (sub-urban, peri-urban, ex-urban).<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Unlike the United States,<ref>Sun L, Chen J, Li Q, Huang D., Dramatic uneven urbanization of large cities throughout the world in recent decades. Nat Commun. 2020 Oct 23;11(1):5366. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19158-1. PMID 33097712; PMCID: PMC7584620.</ref> European populations in urban areas are shrinking, with a noted uptick in migration back to rural and intermediary spaces over the last two decades, and especially since the end of COVID-19 lockdowns.<ref>{{Cite web |titlename=From Past Practices to Future Directions in European Studies |url=https://www."europenowjournal.org"/2020/06/02/from-past-practices-to-future-directions-in-european-studies/ |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=www.europenowjournal.org |language=en-US}}</ref> These increasingly populated rural spaces are being met with greater economic development and tourism in the last two decades.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-12-07 |title=Employment and growth - European Commission |url=https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/data-and-analysis/employment-and-growth_en |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=agriculture.ec.europa.eu |language=en}}</ref> As of 2020, 44% of Europe’s population was categorized as “intermediate”, and only 12% reside in urban space.<ref name="europenowjournal.org"/>

Despite these changes, focus on rural issues has been largely siloed within rural sociology programs. Between 2010 and 2019, the Council for European Studies hosted only one panel on Rural issues (Farm, Form, Family: Agriculture in Europe).<ref>Ducros,{{Cite Helene D.,web |title=Rurality in Europe, Council for European Studies, Europe Now Journal (2020) (noting the absence of “rural topics at Europeanists’ generalist conferences”) available at |url=https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/11/09/rurality-in-europe/#:~:text |access-date=In%20the%20EU%2C%2044%20percent,is%20considered%20to%20be%20rural2024-03-07 |website=www.europenowjournal.org |language=en-US}}</ref> There are signs this may be changing. Europe Now, a widely distributed mainstream academic journal, recently devoting an entire article to the intersection of European and rural studies, including articles challenging the continued applicability of the urban-rural dichotomy, land access, food, resource use disparity, and culture. This move towards interdisciplinarity reflects the human and topographical geography of Europe writ large, and foreshadows possible integration of rural sociology into mainstream academic discourse.<ref>See Ducros, Helene D., Rurality in Europe, Council for European Studies, Europe Now Journal (2020) (noting the absence of “rural topics at Europeanists’ generalist conferences”) available at https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/11/09/rurality-in-europe/#:~:text=In%20the%20EU%2C%2044%20percent,is%20considered%20to%20be%20rural.</ref>

Rural sociology in Australia and New Zealand had a much slower start than its American and European counterparts. This is due to the lack of land grant universities which heavily invested in the discipline in the United States and a lack of interest in studying the “peasant problem” as was the case in Europe.<ref name="Lawrence, Geoffrey 1997">Lawrence, Geoffrey. 1997. “Rural Sociology – Does It Have a Future in Australian Universities?” Rural Society 7(1):29–36. doi: 10.5172/rsj.7.1.29.</ref> The earliest cases of studying rural life in Australia were conducted by anthropologists and social psychologists <ref>Oeser, O., & F. Emery 1954. Social structure and personality in a rural community. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.</ref> in the 1950’s1950s, with sociologists taking on the subject beginning in the 1990’s1990s.<ref>Dempsey, K. 1990. Smalltown: A study of social inequality, cohesion and belonging. Sydney: Sydney University Press.</ref><ref>Dempsey, K. 1992. A man's town: Inequality between women and men in rural Australia. Melbourne: Oxford.</ref><ref>Gray, I. 1990. Politics in place: a study of power relations in an Australian country town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

* Desai, Akshaya R. ''Introduction to Rural Sociology In India'' (1953) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.268227 online] , with reading from scholars