A cohesive set of research statements on critical related issues in British rural geography.

This edited volume is the sixth publication of the series "Rural areas: Issues of local and regional development". It aims at intensifying scholarly exchange on topical questions of social, political, economic and landscape-related transformations of rural areas in Germany and Europe. Europe is a meaningful frame and research topic for rural geography. This edited volume assembles 14 contributions from various countries that shed light on the variety, as well as the differences and commonalities of rural regions in Europe. The volume aims at initiating general reflections about common development mechanisms and structures in the European context in contrast with specific national conditions and path dependencies. By assembling both regional and country case studies as well as cross-national comparisons, the anthology provides a sound basis for future European research in rural geography. It pleads for more cross-national and comparative approaches.

"Michael Woods has taken on the formidable task of giving an overview of rural places and society in advanced economies as a single author and has presented a book that rightly deserves to be called state-of-the-art." - Geographische Rundschau "For those students with an interest in rural change, this 'state of the art' book is essential reading." - Brian Ilbery, University of Coventry "With Rural Geography Michael Woods remedies the often underestimated dynamism of rural places and rural society by providing the much-needed synthesis of the European and North American literature on rural restructuring and globalization processes." - Patrick H. Mooney, University of Kentucky Rural Geography is an introduction to contemporary rural societies and economies in the developed world. It examines the social and economic processes at work in the contemporary countryside - including the more traditional: like agriculture; land use; and population; as well as wider themes like: rural health, crime, exclusion, commodification, and alternative lifestyles. With a contextualising section defining the rural, the text is organized systematically in three principal sections: Processes of Rural Restructuring, Responses to Rural Restructuring, and Experiences of Rural Restructuring. Using the most recent empirical material, statistical data, and research, the text is global in perspective using comparative examples throughout. Rural Geography is a systematic introduction to the processes, responses, and experiences of rural restructuring.

Gender and Rural Geography explores the relationship between gender and rurality. Feminist theory, gender relations and sexuality have all become central concerns of geographical research and significant progress has been made in terms of our understanding of both the broad relationship between gender and geography and the more detailed differences in the lives of men and women over space. The development of feminist perspectives and the study of gender relations in geography, has, however, been fairly uneven over the discipline. Both theoretical and empirical work on gender has tended to be concentrated within social and cultural geography. Moreover it has been directed largely towards the urban sphere.

Rural Geographies provides a critical, contemporary and accessible introduction to rural change by using geographical ideas to understand current issues affecting the countryside. The book discusses how the countryside has been studied by geographers across a range of different scales, from village community to the global countryside. Each chapter provides a concise and well-illustrated introduction to a key theme in rural geography, using current literature and contemporary examples. The book is divided into four sections that cover rural contexts, changes, contests and cultures. The volume takes a global perspective but is largely centred on the Global North, reflecting the tradition of scholarship in rural geography. Rural Geographies is driven by thinking in human geography. It reflects how major paradigmatic changes in the discipline have impacted, and have been informed by, the sub-discipline of rural geography. The aim is to introduce key ideas and concepts that will teach students the critical skills necessary to analyse rural issues themselves. The text will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students studying rural geography and rural studies.

The rural has long been regarded as an important site of geographical inquiry even if our understanding of it has not always been treated as conceptually different from the urban. That said, rural research has pursued a number of distinct empirical agendas ranging from the operation and impacts of agribusiness, to local resistance to global food supply chains, to differing representations of the rural. In doing so, rural geographers have critically examined the relevance and significance of ideas drawn from numerous traditions including political economy, ecological modernization and cultural theory, amending them as appropriate, in their search to understand the nature and trajectory of rural areas. Up until the 1980s, attention remained largely focused upon agriculture as the primary land-use but increasingly new forms of rural consumption - housing, recreation, nature conservation - have taken centre stage as the primacy of local agricultures has been undermined by reduced state protection and 'new' rural populations which have migrated out from the city. More recently, research has been dominated by the 'cultural turn' with particular emphases upon society-nature relations, interpretations of landscape, marginalised others, and analyses of the relations between representation and practice. In the last decade, a more holistic view of the rural, bringing together different aspects of the two previous themes, has emerged through more politically-oriented studies of rural governance concerned with the functioning of interest groups, participation, protest and the allocation and management of resources. The volume is thus structured into three sections concerned with agriculture and food, the rural, and rural governance. The great majority of the selected papers combine both empirical material - often highly informative case studies - and important conceptual arguments about change in the rural condition that can be linked to ideas being employed elsewhere in Geography and the Social Sciences more generally. These critical reflections have been drawn very largely from research conducted in advanced economies which at least provide some commonality of experience allowing the transfer of ideas between what otherwise might be seen as very differing geographical contexts.

This collection provides an overview of China’s rural politics, bringing scholarship on agrarian politics from various social science disciplines together in one place. The twelve contributions, spanning history, anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, political science, and geography, address enduring questions in peasant studies, including the relationship between states and peasants, taxation, social movements, rural-urban linkages, land rights and struggles, gender relations, and environmental politics. Taking rural politics as the power-inflected processes and struggles that shape access and control over resources in the countryside, as well as the values, ideologies and discourses that shape those processes, the volume brings research on China into conversation with the traditions and concerns of peasant studies scholarship. It provides both an introduction to those unfamiliar with Chinese politics, as well as in-depth, new research for experts in the field. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

'This is a unique interpretation of rural issues that will become essential reference for students, scholars, politicians, developers and rural activists...' - Imre Kovach, President, European Society for Rural Sociology, Research director, Institute for Political Sciences, Budapest