Summary
Contents
Subject index
"Michael Woods has taken on the formidable task of giving an overview of rural places and society in advanced economies as a single author and has presented a book that rightly deserves to be called state-of-the-art."- Geographische Rundschau "For those students with an interest in rural change, this 'state of the art' book is essential reading." - Brian Ilbery, University of Coventry"With Rural Geography Michael Woods remedies the often underestimated dynamism of rural places and rural society by providing the much-needed synthesis of the European and North American literature on rural restructuring and globalization processes." - Patrick H. Mooney, University of KentuckyRural Geography is an introduction to contemporary rural societies and economies in the developed world. It examines the social and economic processes at work in the contemporary countryside - including the more traditional: like agriculture; land use; and population; as well as wider themes like: rural health, crime, exclusion, commodification, and alternative lifestyles. With a contextualising section defining the rural, the text is organized systematically in three principal sections: Processes of Rural Restructuring, Responses to Rural Restructuring, and Experiences of Rural Restructuring.Using the most recent empirical material, statistical data, and research, the text is global in perspective using comparative examples throughout. Rural Geography is a systematic introduction to the processes, responses, and experiences of rural restructuring.
Understanding the Rural
Understanding the Rural
Introduction
In the previous chapter we discovered how difficult it is simply to describe the ‘rural’; yet as rural social scientists we need not just to be able to describe the processes shaping the ‘rural’ and their effects – we need also to try to understand these processes, and to propose and critique explanations as to why particular processes operate in particular ways in particular places and have particular outcomes. To do this we need to use theory. Using ‘theory’ may sound like a daunting prospect because it conjures up thoughts of heavy-weight philosophy, but in fact we all routinely use theories in our everyday life. We all implicitly use scientific theories whenever we switch on a light or open a ...
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