School quality and rural in-migration: Can better rural schools attract new residents?

Studies in the nonmetropolitan population change literature have largely focused on the role of natural amenities and economic restructuring, but few have focused on the role of public services. This paper addresses the question of whether public services in nonmetropolitan counties, specifically the outcomes of public schools, could attract migrants. We use a Poisson regression technique little-used in the migration literature to control for push and pull factors driving migration patterns and control for school quality. Results show that better schools can draw migrants to nonmetropolitan areas. Marginal effects are larger for nonmetropolitan counties not adjacent to metropolitan areas.     

Ethos,economics and “civilization” in rural Italy

Sydel Silverman. Three Bells of Civilization: The Life of an Italian Hill Town. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. xvi + 263 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliography and index. $15.00.     

Red rural,blue rural? Presidential voting patterns in a changing rural America

This paper examines individual and aggregate data to document the growing political diversity in rural America. This political diversity is evident in the various economies within rural America. The new rural economy is reflected in recreational counties, where natural and built amenities combined with the provision of services to residents and visitors are the basis for the local economy. Residents of recreational counties tend to be more liberal than their rural peers on a variety of political issues, and supported Barack Obama at significantly higher levels in 2008 and 2012. In contrast, in regions dominated by the old rural economy of farming, political views are more conservative and there is far less support for Democrats in general and President Obama in particular. An analysis of survey data combined with multivariate spatial regression analysis demonstrates that these differences between the old and new rural economy persist even when a variety of demographic, economic, social and geographic variables are controlled.     

Anthropologists and rural development: Old dilemmas in new guises?

Horowitz, Michael M. and Thomas M. Painter, eds. Anthropology and Rural Development in West Africa. Boulder: Westview Press, 1986. xv + 323 pp. including references. $19.95 paper.

Arhem, Kaj. The Maasai and the State: The Impact of Rural Development Policies on a Pastoral People in Tanzania. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 1985. 67 pp. including maps, photographs, and bibliography.

Freeman, Donald B. and Glen B. Norcliffe. Rural Enterprise in Kenya: Development and Spatial Organization of the Nonfarm Sector. Chicago: University of Chicago Department of Geography, 1985. xiv + 100 pp. including tables, appendices, and bibliography. $10.00 paper.     

The effects of ageing and urbanisation on China’s future rural and urban populations

This paper estimates China’s future population and labour force by developing a novel forecasting model for population. It combines information about age-specific parameters on fertility and mortality for both rural and urban areas using information about rural–urban migration and the transformation of rural areas into urban ones. This model takes into account the effects of urbanisation on changes in the age structure of the Chinese population; and provides separate projections on the rural and urban populations. Our findings show that (i) the shares of people aged 65 and over, in China’s rural and urban populations, will double between 2010 and 2030; this implies that the ageing problem in rural areas will continue to be more serious than in urban areas; (ii) the rural labour force will shrink by 45 per cent, between 2010 and 2030, while the urban labour force will grow by 34 per cent; and (iii) China’s urbanisation rate will increase to 71 per cent by 2030.     

Sexual Desires and ‘Social Evils’: Young women in rural Vietnam

Vietnam's increased integration into the global market economy entails rapid and dynamic changes that foster new ways of acting, interacting and rendering the world meaningful. This article addresses the ways in which an ongoing process of transformation in contemporary Vietnam is epitomised by the ambivalence and ambiguity with which female sexuality is imbued. Female sexuality is ideally restricted to marriage and motherhood, meaning that females' premarital or extramarital sexual relations tend to be associated with the category of ‘social evils’ (te nan xa hoi). The category of ‘social evils’ is vague in definition and was introduced into Vietnamese society by virtue of what was seen as the country's increased involvement in a morally polluted world. By drawing on two periods of fieldwork (1994–1995 and 2000–2001) in a northern rural Vietnamese commune, this article highlights the ways in which female sexuality in a local field site is intertwined with anxieties about the forces of a global and ‘poisonous culture’ (van hoa doc hai) that may lead young women to transgress moral limits: for example, by having premarital sex. For many rural female adolescents sexuality thus means a need of self-imposed and/or governmentally imposed control in order to guarantee appropriate morality. For others, however, sexuality means the involvement in premarital sexual relations and, hence, a crossing of moral boundaries.

Deseos Sexuales y ‘Males Sociales’: mujeres jóvenes en el campo de Vietnam

La integración aumentado de Vietnam en la economía de mercado globalizada implica cambios rápidos y dinámicos que fomentan nuevas maneras de actuar, de relacionarse, y de hacer el mundo significativo. Este artículo trata las maneras en que un proceso continuo de trasformación en Vietnam contemporáneo se ejemplifica de la ambivalencia y ambigüedad de que se ésta empapada la sexualidad femenina. La sexualidad femenina se limita al matrimonio y la maternidad, lo cual significa que las relaciones sexuales prematrimonial o extramatrimonial tienden a estar relacionado con la categoría de «males sociales» («te nan xa hoi»). La categoría de «males sociales» tiene definición imprecisa y era introducida a la sociedad vietnamita en virtud de lo que se veía como la implicación creciente del país en un mundo moral contaminado. Haciendo uso de trabajo de campo que se realizó en dos períodos distintas (1994–1995 y 2000–2001) en una comuna rural en el norte de Vietnam, este artículo destaca las maneras en que la sexualidad femenina, en un sitio local del campo, se entrelaza con ansiedades de las fuerzas de una cultura global y «venenosa» («hai de van hoa doc»), lo que influya a las mujeres jóvenes a transgredir los límites morales, por ejemplo, tener sexo prematrimonial. Así que, para muchos de las adolescentes rurales la sexualidad significa la necesidad de tener control que se impone por ellas mismas y/o por el gobierno para garantizar moralidad adecuada. Sin embargo, para otras la sexualidad significa la participación en relaciones sexuales prematrimoniales y, por lo tanto, una travesía de los límites morales.     

Faith no more? The divergence of political trust between urban and rural Europe

Events such as Brexit and the Gilet Jaunes protests have highlighted the spatial nature of populism. In particular, there has been increasing political divergence between urban and rural areas, with rural areas apparently having lost faith in national governments. We investigate this divergence using data on over 125,000 EU citizens from the European Social Survey from 2008 to 2018. We show that people in rural areas have lower political trust than urban or peri-urban residents, with this difference clear for six different forms of political institutions, including politicians, political parties, and national parliaments. There has been divergence of political trust between urban and rural Europe since 2008, although this is primarily driven by Southern Europe. While these results can partly be explained by demographic differences between cities and the countryside, divergent economic experiences, differences in values, and perceptions that public services are less effective outside of urban areas, there is a residual ‘rural effect’ beyond this. We argue that the polarisation of urban-rural political trust has important implications for the functioning of European democracies.     

New countryside,old peasants? Politics,tradition and modernity in rural France

Since the publication of the volume Rural Studies in Britain and France (1990) by P. Lowe and M. Bodiguel, ‘la ruralitéfrançaise’ has become the object of intense scrutiny and has emerged as a political field where questions of national and collective identity, traditions, history, landscapes, the past and future of French society have all been debated. In the introduction to that volume, the editors declared: ‘The countryside and rural society, their past, present and future, are major preoccupations in Britain and in France. The urbanisation of the two nations has in no way diminished this interest; if anything, it has sharpened it. With the bulk of economic and social activity concentrated in towns and cities, the countryside has come to embody largely a cultural interest in both countries’, something that has been borne out by recent events. This special issue devoted to ‘Politics, tradition and modernity in rural France’ is the first issue of Modern & Contemporary France to be dedicated to a discussion of topics surrounding la question agricole. The recent publication of a short dossier on French agriculture in the journal French Politics, Society and Culture pointed the way to a number of the debates examined in the following articles about the past and the future of rural France, especially in the context of a more globalised and Europeanised economy.     

Between ‘here’ and ‘there’: family violence against immigrant and refugee women in urban and rural Southern Australia

The purpose of this article is to investigate how (dis)connection with place influences immigrant and refugee women’s experiences of family violence in regional/remote and metropolitan southern Australia. We draw on research from the ASPIRE project (Analysing Safety and Place in Refugee Experience) in the states of Victoria and Tasmania. A participatory research approach was used to interview immigrant and refugee women who had experienced violence, and providers of family violence services from eight locations in the two states. Both inner urban, regional and remote locations were included in the study. The findings present new insight into how geographic isolation and the scarcity of specialized services affected the experiences of immigrant and refugee women in regional/remote areas. Across all settings, participants described experiences of social isolation associated with both distance from community networks and being ostracized or seeking to avoid the proximity of perpetrators and their social networks. Notably, the experiences of women living in regional Tasmania and regional Victoria shared more similarities than did those of immigrant and refugee women in regional Victoria and inner-urban Melbourne despite the different legislative environments in the two states.     

The emergence of an ethic of care in rural Kenyan schools? Perspectives of teachers and orphaned and vulnerable pupils

In the context of HIV, there is considerable debate about the role of schools and teachers as potential sources of care and support for vulnerable children. This qualitative research examines ‘care’ as experienced and practiced by pupils and teachers in rural Western Kenya. In primary and secondary schools, interviews were conducted with 18 teachers and 57 orphaned and vulnerable pupils, alongside Photovoice. Drawing on thematic analysis and an ‘ethic of care’ theoretical perspective, we unpack the informal caring practices of teachers within resource-constrained settings. The research provides glimpses of schools as spaces of care, participation and support for orphaned and vulnerable pupils. Recognising and providing institutional support for the development of an ethic of care in schools may help to tackle the considerable educational barriers facing girls and boys who are orphaned and vulnerable and move ‘care’ closer towards the centre of educational policy and practice in the global South.     

‘In summer we go and drink at the lake’: young men and the geographies of alcohol and drinking in rural Estonia

In this paper, we explore the role of place in drinking practices of young people in the context of rural Estonia. We draw on a participatory research project carried out during seven months with a group of eight young men (15–18 years of age). We focus on three locations identified as the most popular drinking places by the young men in our research – familial homes, a local hamburger kiosk and the outdoors. The findings indicate that youth drinking practices as well as the drunkenness-related risks are spatially contingent. Characteristics of individual drinking locations influence the negotiation of local and national opportunities, restrictions and attitudes toward drinking, and the associated risks. We argue that, when developing public health tools, it is fruitful to pay attention to the local context and specific places in which young people's drinking practices are negotiated.     

Local history as productive nostalgia? Change,continuity and sense of place in rural England

Local history groups are often negatively associated with a tendency to indulge in nostalgic practices that yearn for a romanticized past and propagate resistance to change. Their role in local politics and power networks (particularly in relation to planning and development processes) has also been critiqued as exacerbating issues of social inequality and exclusion. While not contesting the realities of such arguments, this paper adds nuance to such debates using the notion of ‘productive’ or ‘mobile’ nostalgia to explore possibilities for more positive renderings of local history and heritage activities. Empirical evidence from qualitative research in a rural village in Norfolk, England, is drawn on to demonstrate the role of these practices in providing a sense of continuity amid a continuously changing locale through the reassertion of place identities and attachments. Although by no means apolitical, this process need not necessarily be one of preservationism and resistance to change, but can be a mechanism through which residents are able to accept, or even welcome, changes to the social and physical constitution of their village. The paper also critically considers the value of productive nostalgia as a concept through which to explore local history practices and wider heritage movements.     

Is culture-led redevelopment relevant for rural planners? The risk of adopting urban theories in rural settings

In the paper, the author argues that cultural strategies and theories about urban planning may be irrelevant or even counterproductive outside urban and suburban contexts. In many rural settings the problem is not the destruction of the cultural heritage or how to counterbalance the influence from corporate interests, but rather the absence of such interests in the first place. From a study of two rural municipalities in southern Norway, the author demonstrates that culture-led strategies may be more of a distraction than an instrument for creating economic growth. Measured by the common goals for rural development in Norway, the cultural strategy has only been a success in one of the cases, whereas in the other case ideas about culture-led redevelopment have not prevented economic and demographic decline. The author concludes that while culture can be instrumental in creating growth in rural municipalities, it might also hamper their development.     

‘Broad but not deep’: regional food hubs and rural development in the United States

Abstract

As organizations that aggregate, market, and distribute locally and regionally sourced food within wholesale, retail, and institutional markets, regional food hubs (RFHs) are increasingly promoted in the United States as rural development tools. Connections between RFHs and rural development, however, remain mostly untested and unclear. Motivated by prolonged declines in rural, agricultural communities and limited investigation to date, this paper adopts the capability approach to comprehensively test for the first time the rural development rhetoric surrounding RFHs. In-depth interviews in a rural, poor setting contribute empirical, noneconomic evidence to assess if, how, how much, and for whom RFHs advance rural opportunities and improve upon highly localized food systems. Though not to the purported degree, RFHs facilitate rural development, and do so in previously unexplored though substantial ways. Contrary to what proponents might anticipate, the study simultaneously highlights negative outcomes and areas that – albeit key to rural development narratives – remain unchanged. Grounding assumptions, highlighting alternative spaces of impact, and uncovering barriers with a novel evaluative approach, this paper draws on community voices to fill gaps between theory and reality and offer insights for those hoping to harness the transformative capacities of food.     

Connecting global health interventions and lived experiences: suspending ‘normality’ at funerals in rural Tanzania

In this paper, we use the funeral space and its liminal nature as a milieu for exploring how a ‘modern’ health intervention, the mosquito bednet, is negotiated by its recipients in relation to its (non)-usage in such spaces. With a focus on sleeping arrangements at funerals and drawing on empirical data from participants living in rural southern Tanzania, we discuss how the bednet is linked to the notion of being unsympathetic to the death. Viewed as a symbol of modernity and a reflection of wealth and individual pride, the bednet becomes physically and symbolically inappropriate in the more sacred, ‘in-between’ site of the funeral. We also uncover how risk perceptions regarding malaria transmission are re-cast in funeral spaces, with socio-cultural practices and health-related behaviours being simultaneously ‘risky’ for individual mourners and reinforcing in terms of group social cohesion. As individual mourners' concerns about malaria risks are suspended, notions of pain and discomfort come to the fore as part of the mourning process and respect for the deceased.     

Changing intergenerational contracts: gender,cohorts and elder care in central rural China, 2005–2013

In the absence of stable pension systems, elder care arrangements in rural China depend on intergenerational contracts. The existing scholarship on elder care in rural China tends to treat the elderly as a homogeneous group and depict them mainly as ‘care recipients’. Based on a diachronic qualitative study in central rural China between 2005 and 2013, this research examines the changing intergenerational contracts between two cohorts of rural elderly and their adult children. These cohorts hold different positions in terms of family structure, number and sex composition of adult children, living arrangement, physical situation, economic standing and appreciation of intergenerational exchange. These differences further produce different social exchange patterns and disparate elder care modalities between genders and cohorts. Drawing upon insights from gender theory on social gerontology, this research identifies the ‘agency’ of older rural women and explores ageing issues among older rural men. This study also presents policy implications by identifying the most disadvantaged group in terms of elder care support.