Handbook of Rural Studies (Hardcover)

“The Handbook of Rural Studies attempts to address that question by bringing together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to consider key approaches, theoretical developments, and contemporary conditions in rural communities. The editors contend there is revival afoot, and their aim is to convey what they see as new intellectual excitement and heightened relevance of rural studies. The 35 diverse essays include work by scholars trained in sociology, geography, planning, economics, psychology, tourism management, and development. One of the clear strengths of the book is its broad, even eclectic, approach. The stronger chapters include well-written, thoughtful introductory road maps to their argument, review the relevant literature to date, and assess what it adds up to for the field or a particular subfield. These authors bring a rural lens to key contemporary concerns about issues such as racial, gender, and class inequality, politics, environmental degradation, and new community and regional development efforts.”

`This Handbook powerfully demonstrates that rural spaces, rural societies and rural natures are at the very forefront of critical social science endeavour. Read this book, become a rural social scientist' - Henry Buller, University of Exeter

`An outstandingly comprehensive review of theory, research and the study of rural questions…an essential reference for students, scholars, politicians, developers and rural activists' - Imre Kovach, Institute for Political Sciences, Budapest

`This collection is an essential addition to any rural scholar’s library and will be a critical resource for both established rural scholars and rising graduate students interested in rural research topics' - Peter B Nelson, Middlebury College

`The Handbook of Rural Studies is a tour de force on changing rural people and places in a rapidly urbanizing global economy -- the most comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment of "rural" available anywhere. This is absolutely must reading for social scientists concerned about finding a prominent place for "rural" in scholarly discourse, institutional analysis, and public policy debates on the political economy of space' - Daniel T Lichter, Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University

The Handbook represents the vitality and theoretical innovation at work in rural studies. It shows how political economy and the 'cultural turn' have led to very significant new thinking in the cultural representations of: rurality; nature; sustainability; new economies; power and rurality; new consumerism; and exclusion and rurality.

It is organized in three sections: approaches to rural studies; rural research: key theoretical co-ordinates and new rural relations.

In a rich and textured discussion, the Handbook of Rural Studies explains the key moments in which the theorization of culture, nature, politics, agency, and space in rural contexts have transmitted ideas back into wider social science. (20061205)