Abstract
Rethinking Rural Studies is a seminal contribution. Written by two scholars foundational to the development of this field, the book spans social science disciplines and nations across the global North. Sociologists have been key players in rural studies. The book builds on sociological concepts and theories and has important implications for our discipline.
Authors David L. Brown and Mark Shucksmith set out the goals of the book as identifying new theoretical and empirical approaches and emerging issues and taking stock of rural studies’ position in academic, civic, and policy circles. These goals are aptly met across the various chapters, which point out numerous directions for research and practice to follow. The authors indicate the book takes a “relational approach,” by which they mean situating rural populations, communities, and institutions within the broader national and global context along with a critical lens that attends to power and inequality. In doing so, they advance a forward-looking agenda that includes identifying causes of and remedies for gaps in well-being across rural-urban populations by class and other statuses. The book concludes by advocating for what the authors term a “hopeful approach” that merges a critically informed stance, empirical evidence, and need for action.
In fields that are not clearly bounded by academic disciplines such as rural studies, it can be difficult to curate disparate work. The book offers a well-rounded selection of issues that animate scholars and a rendition of what the field encompasses.
Brown and Shucksmith provide a useful overview of the field’s distinguishable characteristics. They describe rural studies as transdisciplinary, where scholars from different disciplines (especially sociology, geography, and planning) engage in genuine interaction to move the field forward. Scholars tend to be ecumenical in respecting work from a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches. Brown and Shucksmith characterize the field as one of engaged scholarship. Here they build on Michael Burawoy’s conceptualization of the four types of sociology. The field is characterized by work oriented toward academics (i.e., professional and critical sociology/social science) but is especially unique because it elevates public sociology/social science, stressing grassroots work with civil society and community organizations, as well as policy sociology/social science, as when scholars act progressively in the public interest in informing government. In this sense—relative to other fields—scholars of rural studies are less likely to view professional or critical social science as necessarily compromised by public and policy social science. They are more likely to embark on research paths where public social science overlaps with the three other forms of sociology/social science in demanding active engagement and in propelling career trajectories.
The book examines eight thematic areas. In their discussion of each, the authors identify emerging conceptual issues and bring in literatures that could be informative but remain too often overlooked. The discussion of each thematic area is also linked to the broader qualities of the field with its interest in power and inequality, use of ecumenical approaches, and pursuit of scholarly work as well as emancipatory practice.
Among the substantive topics addressed, Brown and Shucksmith stake out the conceptualization of settlement systems, the spatial and population background for rural studies. The authors argue against rural-urban binaries and for treating rural-urban places on a continuum but with nuances that stress the dynamics of how rural-urban places and population processes are mutually connected and networked. Another substantive concern is the rural economy, addressed with a twist: rather than considering so much the structure of industries, firms, and jobs that distinguishes places, the authors focus on the rural economy from a family-livelihood standpoint. This entails the need to understand how families are embedded in contexts experiencing changes that affect family well-being: neoliberalization, globalization, industrial restructuring, advances in information technology, and international migration.
The well-being of rural people is a central concern of rural studies, and authors advocate an agenda for research and policy that builds on the broad concept of collective well-being. Poverty and general inequality are also a key substantive concern. Here the authors argue for taking an extended view of social exclusion and bringing in Bourdieusian class analysis to improve current theorizations. Spatial inequality is addressed with attention to “left-behind” places. The authors see prevailing metanarratives about these places as insufficient. They also argue for an extension of Lefebvre’s concept of “right to the city” into thinking about the “right to the countryside” in a relational approach to spatial justice.
In a chapter on rural demography and population, the authors argue for going beyond standard demographic accounting and description of rural populations and for looking at processes that link population and community change. Among these processes, aging and migration are central. This chapter offers important insights that challenge conventional ideas about rural populations. Farming and agriculture are addressed with a focus on productivist agriculture, how science and technology have driven its changes, and how its development and impacts need to be treated as embedded in society, the economy, and natural environment. A final substantive chapter focuses on natural resources, energy, and environment. The authors advance a “coupled society-nature” lens and provide useful case-study examples of how to operationalize such a lens. They also interrogate concepts often applied to rural places, as seen in sustainability, resilience, and just-transition.
The conclusion offers a “hopeful approach” that considers how rural studies can contribute to advancing rural well-being through public discourse and policy and by producing the scientific knowledge that undergirds these activities and contributes to theory and research. The authors outline future directions for the field that include improving the understanding of causal pathways, the rural-urban interface, and impacts of macro societal processes on rural communities, and exploring real alternatives to capitalist development.
The book raises a few questions around its portrayal of the coherence of rural studies. To what degree does rural studies in fact constitute a distinct field (or discipline, p. 185) or more of a collection of different substantive literatures on rural places and populations? Taking a forward-looking approach presupposes readers’ familiarity of what was done in the past, which varies by substantive topic. As literatures and theoretical frameworks come and go in any field, the thread between the past and present may need to be stronger for some readers.
This book should be of wide interest to sociologists. It brings in literatures, theories, concepts, and ideas that sociologists ought to integrate into their toolkit. For example, for urban sociologists, it speaks to the rural-urban interface and for questioning the degree of variation between rural-urban communities. For those studying inequality, the book brings in the complexity of spatiality and helps develop a better understanding of why people fall into poverty owing to the communities and regions where they live. For political sociologists, the book helps explain rural-urban political divides. For demographers, the book speaks to how population processes are interrelated with community changes, especially in the cases of aging and migration. The book will also be of much interest to rural sociologists, who will find a trove of ideas for future research.
In attending to nations beyond the United States, the book expands our horizons. For example, while in the United States rural poverty has historically been higher than urban poverty when measured by the official rate, in England, the case is reversed. Moreover, the United States, unlike many developed nations, has no national policy to address rural or other spatial inequality.
Overall, Rethinking Rural Studies offers a thoughtful and engaging account of this field. It explains why activist scholarship does not have to be incompatible with other ways of doing sociology. The authors provide concrete examples of how research, theory, and practice can converge to make a progressive difference.