IRSA is an umbrella organisation comprising membership of regional rural sociological associations. The main activity of IRSA is to hold a World Congress of Rural Sociology every 4 years. The 2000 World Congress will be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There are substantial discounts to IRSA members for the registration fees for World Congresses. It is expected that aOn members will subscribe to the journal, Rural Society , published by the Centre for Rural Social Research.
People join aOn by subscribing to the aOn listserv.
The listserv also provides a way of distributing information of interest to rural social researchers in the Australia, New Zealand and Oceania regions. Normally this would be built into the membership fee of those member associations.