Rural sociology

Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties to the national Department of Agriculture and land-grant university colleges of agriculture.
While the issue of natural resource access transcends traditional rural spatial boundaries, the sociology of food and agriculture is one focus of rural sociology, and much of the field is dedicated to the economics of farm production. Other areas of study include rural migration and other demographic patterns, environmental sociology, amenity-led development, public-lands policies, so-called "boomtown" development, social disruption, the sociology of natural resources (including forests, mining, fishing and other areas), rural cultures and identities, rural health-care, and educational policies. Many rural sociologists work in the areas of development studies, community studies, community development, and environmental studies. Much of the research involves developing countries or the Third World.
History
United States
Rural sociology was a concept first brought by Americans in response to the large amounts of people living and working on the grounds of farms. Rural sociology was the first and for a time the largest branch of American sociology. Histories of the field were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
Europe
Rural sociology in Europe developed not in the old established universities but in the new countries that emerged after 1919 and were strongly influenced by the political philosophy of Agrarianism, which promoted the farmer as the strength of society. Czechoslovakia opened three research centers, and others opened in Romania and Yugoslavia.
Australia and New Zealand
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. The earliest cases of studying rural life in Australia were conducted by anthropologists and social psychologists in the 1950’s, with sociologists taking on the subject beginning in the 1990’s.
Attempts were made between 1935-1957 to bring an American style rural sociology to New Zealand. The New Zealand department of Agriculture, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, tasked Otago Universities economist W.T. Doig with surveying living standards in rural New Zealand in 1935. The creation and funding of such a report mirrors America's Commission on Country Life. Additional Carnegie funds were granted to the Shelly Group who conducted the countries first major sociological community study and endorsed the creation of land grant institutions in New Zealand. Ultimately, these attempts to institutionalize rural sociology in New Zealand failed due to the departments lack of organization and failure to publish impactful survey results.
Early studies of rural sociology in the region focused on the influence of transnational agribusiness, technological changes effects on rural communities, the restructuring of rural environments, and social causes of environmental degradation. By the mid 2000's researchers focus had shifted towards broader sociological questions and variables such as the construction and framing of gender among Australian and New Zealand farmers, governmental policies impacts on rural spaces and studies, and rural safety and crime. Scholars have additionally focused on rural residents, particularly farmers, opinions of environmentalism and environmental policies in recent years. Such a focus is particularly salient in New Zealand where livestock farming has historically been a major national source of income and environmental policies have become increasingly strict in recent years.
Though early scholars of rural sociology in Australasia tout it for its critical lens, publications in the 2010’s and 2020’s have accused the discipline of omitting the experiences of indigenous peoples, failing to account for class based differences, discounting the importance of race and ethnicity, and only recently incorporating in studies of women in rural places. Work on rural women in the region has often incorporated white feminism and used a colonial lens. As a response, scholars, particularly in New Zealand (Aotearoa), have begun to focus on the experiences of the Māori in rural areas, while likewise shifting from solving issues of farmers to rural residents. A few scholars in Australia have likewise begun to incorporate the experiences of Aboriginal peoples into their scholarship, some of whom are indigenous scholars themselves. In particular, Sandy O'Sullivan, Chelsea Joanne Ruth Watego, and Aileen Moreton-Robinson have risen to prominence in recent years, though the later two identify more as indigenous feminist scholars then rural sociology scholars.
Today many prominent scholars do not belong to a department of rural sociology, but rather related disciplines such as geography in the case of Ruth Liepins, Indigenous Studies in the case of Sandy O'Sullivan, or Arts, Education, and Law in the case of Barbara Pini. Today courses in the discipline can be studied at a small number of institutions: University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury), Central Queensland University, Charles Sturt University, and the Department of Agriculture at the University of Queensland. Additionally, academics who publish in the discipline, such as Ann Pomeroy, Barbara Pini, Laura Rodriguez Castro, and Ruth Liepins, can be found at University of Otago, Griffith University, and Deakin University.
Latin America
The beginnings of rural sociology’s development in Latin America began in 1934 under the research of Commission of Cuban Affairs of the Foreign Policy Association member Carle C. Zimmerman. As a North American rural sociologist, he conducted a study in Cuba comparing the wealth and conditions of cane workers to that of colonizers. The results of this work ultimately resulting in a demand of rural life studies expanding to Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico largely for the sake of materials to fuel the quality of the United States’ performance in World War II.
In the midst of the war, other rural sociologists were exploring the rural life of other countries. Dr. Olen Leonard assisted in the establishment of Tingo Maria’s Agricultural Extension program, the study of which was published in 1943. While in Ecuador, Leonard attempted to establish a similar program in the Hacienda Pichalinqui region by identifying how locals gathered, the value and meaning of possessions, and the attitudes of those in the area. His work in Guatemala consisted of assisting public officials develop a long term plan for agricultural education; in Nicaragua he participated in the development of a general and agricultural population census. Glen Taggert (El Salvador), Dr. Carl Taylor (Argentina), and T. Lynn Smith (Colombia, El Salvador) all also took part in advancing Agricultural Extension programs in Latin America. Taylor’s work in particular inspired the Argentinian Institute of Agriculture to create the Institute of Rural life.
The Caracas Regional Seminar on Education in Latin America of 1948 established fundamental education as a system that would be “specifically attending to native groups in such a way as to promote their all-around development in accordance with their best cultural traditions, economic needs, and social idiosyncrasies”. This establishment catapulted a pilot project that would be explicitly tailored to the education of adults in rural communities. By the Fourth Inter-American Agricultural Conference in 1950 Montevideo, the United Nations departments of Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Labour Organization were given the responsibility of becoming more involved in those activities that would benefit rural welfare. As a combined force, they were also tasked with requesting that studies be performed on conditions of social, economic, and spiritual nature as they pertain to the well-being of rural communities.
There are five ways in which Latin American rural communities are differentiated from North American rural communities in 1958:
Village Community: Rural communities in Latin America are much more likely to be established around village communities. This type of community showed the highest prevalence in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. This is due to these countries having stronger aboriginal elements where the villagers own the land.
Church and State: At this point in time, Latin American countries were reported as having a government with stronger ties to religion, ideals and decision-making processes falling in line exactly with the church parish. In this same vein, municipalities are drawn almost exclusively to account for the social and economic factors of the region in an attempt to create a more natural social environment.
Social Organization: The rural experience of Latin America is much more closely knit. Rather than being familiar or having some sort of affiliation with the entirety of the area in an “everyone knows everyone” manner, the social organization here reflects a more contained approach to relationships. Social circles extend strictly to those with which they have daily interactions, hardly straying outside. This approach means that if these few relationships do not produce a particular set of goods, then the group must go without.
Trade and Commerce: Keeping in line with the established relationship between church and state, the portions of a rural area that would be considered the trade center in North America are referred to as “ceremonial” or “church” centers. Bartering was the dominating form of economics among Latin American countries.
Stable Environment: Latin American rural communities did not face much in the way of threats against the sustainability of their lifestyles. Hardly any boundaries—administrative, legal, judicial, fiscal, or otherwise—obstructed the ability to maintain natural rural areas and the lives of the residents settled in them.
Mobilized peasants of the 1960s and 1970 attracted scholars to perform more in-depth studies on Latin American rural life. Conflict struck between the Marxist lean of social science and neoclassical domination of economics. Rural class structure, agrarian reform, and capitalist modes of production were all topics of discussion as the peasantry navigated their revolutionary status. The turn of the 21st century introduced the concept of “new rurality”. The shaping of Latin America’s rural economy had finally become entrenched in the newfound neoliberalism and globalization of the 1980s and 90s. Researchers claim that this has been expressed through embracing non-farm activities, feminization of rural work, growing rural-urban relations, and migration and remittances. Though some argue that no change has occurred because social ills (e.g., poverty, social injustice) prevail.
Mission statements
The mission statements of university departments of rural sociology have expanded to include more topics, such as sustainable development. For example, at the University of Missouri the mission is:
"The Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri employs the theoretical and methodological tools of rural sociology to address challenges of the 21st century – preserving our natural resources, providing safe and nutritious food for an expanding population, adapting to climate changes, and maintaining sustainable rural livelihoods."
The University of Wisconsin set up one of the first departments of rural sociology. It has now dropped the term "rural" and changed its name to the "Department of Community and Environmental Sociology." Similarly, the Rural Sociology Program at the University of Kentucky has evolved into the. "Department of Community and Leadership Development," while transferring the graduate program in rural sociology to the Sociology Department. Cornell University's department of rural sociology has also changed its name to the department of Development Sociology.
Associations
Scholarly associations in rural sociology include:
The Rural Sociological Society (RSS), of the United States, was formed in 1937 after years of discussion as a spinoff of the American Sociological Society. It publishes the scholarly quarterly journal Rural Sociology. The full run of back issues is online from 1936 to 1989 through Cornell University Library's program of putting online core historical resources in rural sociology.
The European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS) was founded in 1957. It says it is "the leading European association for scientists involved in the study of agriculture and fisheries, food production and consumption, rural development and change, rurality and cultural heritage, equality and inequality in rural society, and nature and environmental care."
The International Rural Sociology Association (IRSA) has as its mission, to "foster the development of rural sociology; further the application of sociological inquiry to the improvement of the quality of rural life; and provide a mechanism whereby rural sociologists can generate dialogue and useful exchange." It published the International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food.
The International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) publishes the journal, Society & Natural Resources.
Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociologia Rural (ALASRU) as an organization founded in 1969, much of the rural sociology findings that come out of Latin America today is the work of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociologia Rural (Latin American Rural Sociological Association). With a combined effort of inter- and non-governmental organizations, the ALASRU aims to “promote rural development in the region; foster the dissemination and advancement of rural sociology; support the creation of national centres to carry out research in the field.”
Journals
Several academic journals are published in the field of (or closely related to) rural sociology, including:
Agriculture and Human Values
Journal of Agrarian Change
Journal of Peasant Studies
Journal of Rural Studies
Rural Sociology
Society & Natural Resources
Sociologia Ruralis
See also
Food studies
Highland Clearances
Regional science
Rural development
Rural ghetto
Rural history
Sociology of disaster
References
Further reading
Brunner, E. D. The Growth of a Science: A Half-Century of Rural Sociological Research in the United States (Harper & Brothers, 1957).
Friedland, W. H. "The End of Rural Society and the Future of Rural Sociology." Rural Sociology (1982) 47(4): 589–608.
Desai, A.I. Rural Sociology in India (1978) online
Desai, Akshaya R. Introduction to Rural Sociology In India (1953) online , with reading from scholars
Goreham, Gary A. ed. The Encyclopedia of Rural America: The Land and People (2 Volume, 2nd ed. 2008), 1341pp
Hanson, Victor Davis. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (1999) excerpt and text search
Nelson, L. Rural Sociology: Its Origins and Growth in the United States (University of Minnesota Press, 1969).
Rani, Asha and Gajanafar Alam. Encyclopaedia of Urban & Rural Sociology : Social & Psychological Behaviour (3 Vol, 2012)
Smith, Suzanne. "The Institutional and Intellectual Origins of Rural Sociology" (Paper for 2011 Rural Sociology Assn. meeting) online
Sorokin, Pitirim A., Carle Zimmerman and Charles Galpin. A Systematic Source Book In Rural Sociology (3 vol 1931) excerpt and text search v 1; world perspective
Sorokin, Pitirim A. and C. C. Zimmerman Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (1929), world perspective
Thomas, William I., and Florian Znaniecki. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (2 vol. 1918); classic sociological study; complete text online free
Wyman, Andrea. Rural women teachers in the United States (1997) online
External links
European Society for Rural Sociology
Rural Sociological Society
Rural Sociology back issues, 1938-1989