The theme of the 2015 conference will be “Knowing Rural: Situating the Lived Experience of Rurality in Definitions of Rural” and will take place in Madison, WI August 6-9, 2015.
Around the globe, official definitions of rural vary, and each definition has implications for how we understand and give meaning to rural spaces and places. Making sense of rural experiences requires understanding the diverse geographies, economies, and communities that make up rural places. As rural populations age and rural communities confront the emergent complexities of contemporary life, the lived experience of rurality is undergoing rapid transformation. What social, economic and political factors are shaping and re-shaping the lived experience of rural populations? How are rural populations responding and adapting to these changes? And, finally, how might these changes challenge the ways we understand and define rurality? We invite you explore these and a wide variety of other questions at our next annual meeting. We look forward to seeing you in Madison.
Extended Abstracts:
Extended abstracts should be approximately 350-500 words (about 1.5-3 pages) and briefly outline the purpose and theoretical framing of the paper, methods and data used, and preliminary (if available) or expected findings. We offer this description as a general guideline and understand some papers may include other information.
The Extended Abstracts deadline is February 6, 2015.
To submit, please visit the “Call for Papers” tab on the RSS website, or click here.
Please contact Lauren McKinney or Jessica Crowe with any questions or ideas for special panels and events at the Annual Meeting.
In recent times our colleagues have been evaluating neoliberalism and its impacts upon farming – and upon rural society, more generally. A significant contribution has been Steven Wolf and Alessandro Bonanno’s edited collection The Neoliberal Regime in the Agri-food Sector: Crisis, Resilience and Restructuring which arose from an RSS Sociology of Agrifood Research Interest Group (SAFRIG) mini-conference held in Chicago in 2012. In August this year the theme of the European Society for Rural Sociology Congress was ‘Places of Possibility: Rural Societies in a Neoliberal World’. Globally, agri-food scholars including Alessandro Bonanno, Hilde Bjorkhaug, Larry Busch, Hugh Campbell, Jennifer Clapp, Madeleine Fairbairn, Vaughan Higgins, Phil McMichael, Terry Marsden, Bill Pritchard and many others have sought to understand links between neoliberalism and agrifood restructuring. What have been the impacts of neoliberalism upon agriculture and rural society? Are we moving beyond neoliberalism?
First World Hunger Revisited exposes the hidden functions and limits of food charity and corporately sponsored food banks as primary responses to widespread domestic hunger and income poverty in twelve rich ‘food-secure’ societies and emerging economies: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Who wins, who loses when governments violate their Right to Food obligations under international law to ensure the food security of their vulnerable populations? It challenges the effectiveness of food aid and argues for integrated income redistribution, agriculture, food, health and social policies informed by the Right to Food, whilst critiquing the lack of public policy and political will in achieving food security for all. This second edition is edited by Graham Riches and Tiina Silvasti, and published by Palgrave Macmillan.
This fourth Rural Sociological Society decennial volume provides advanced policy scholarship on rural North America during the 2010s, closely reflecting upon the increasingly global nature of social, cultural, and economic forces and the impact of neoliberal ideology upon policy, politics, and power in rural areas. The chapters in this volume represent the expertise of an influential group of scholars in rural sociology and related social sciences. Its five sections address the changing structure of North American agriculture, natural resources and the environment, demographics, diversity, and quality of life in rural communities. The book is edited by Conner Bailey, Leif Jensen, and Elizabeth Ransom and published on West Virginia University Press, 2014.
The Fifth CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 15-18 July 2015. The call for abstracts has been extended until 31 January 2015.