The Making of Identity through Rural Space


Book Description

Though sometimes overlooked and underestimated, rural space has played a substantial role in social, cultural, economic, and ideological change. This role can be studied by looking at the re/production of spatial agents that were caused by direct or indirect political interventions in rural communities. In this book, scholars looking at case studies from Greece, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, and Austria discuss the making of identity in and through rural areas, which have dramatically changed under different political, social, and economic conditions from the turn of the 20th century up until today. By focusing on potential contestations of such changes, the authors provide a better in-depth understanding of spatial dynamics related to cultural and social spheres of 20th-century rurality. Includes contributions of national and international experts Deals with 20th-century rural environment and identity-making policies Findings of an international symposium of DFG Research Training Group "Cultural and Technological Significance of Historic Buildings", Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus-Senftenberg




Endangered Spaces, Enduring Places


Book Description

Rural America as a place and a way of life is undergoing major transformation. The farm crisis and the decline of manufacturing dealt a double blow to the rural economy in the 1980s. Rural communities continue to lose farms, factories, and young people. Rural lands are increasingly being sought as places for vacation homes, state prisons, and waste dumps. Rural people are ambivalent about new residents and activities that are coming in and unsure of their own rural identity. Old assumptions about rural life and rural community are now open to question. Based on years of field observations and hundreds of interviews in fifteen rural counties in upstate New York, Fitchen's book explores these interconnected changes. It describes the financial stress in dairy farming and the efforts families made to hold onto their farms. It records the stunned disbelief and difficult adjustment of rural factory workers and small communities as local plants shut down. The author chronicles the struggles of communities plagued by toxic chemicals in their drinking water and of young families slipping farther into poverty. She reports on some communities that are campaigning to "win" a state prison and others that are protesting against a proposed radioactive waste dump. The book illustrates the persistence of rural ingenuity and determination but argues that these alone cannot solve the problems of rural America. A well-informed federal and state commitment is necessary. With policies and programs appropriate for rural situations, most communities could adapt creatively to the changes, integrate around a new rural identity, and survive into the twenty-first century as enduring social settings for their residents.




Rural Education for the Twenty-first Century


Book Description

"A collection of essays examining the various social, cultural, and economic intersections of rural place and global space, as viewed through the lens of education. Explores practices that offer both problems and possibilities for the future of rural schools and communities, in the United States and abroad"--Provided by publisher.




The Making of Identity Through Rural Space


Book Description

Though sometimes overlooked and underestimated, rural space has played a substantial role in social, cultural, economic, and ideological change. This role can be studied by looking at the re/production of spatial agents that were caused by direct or indirect political interventions in rural communities. In this book, scholars looking at case studies from Greece, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, and Austria discuss the making of identity in and through rural areas, which have dramatically changed under different political, social, and economic conditions from the turn of the 20th century up until today. By focusing on potential contestations of such changes, the authors provide a better in-depth understanding of spatial dynamics related to cultural and social spheres of 20th-century rurality. Includes contributions of national and international experts Deals with 20th-century rural environment and identity-making policies Findings of an international symposium of DFG Research Training Group "Cultural and Technological Significance of Historic Buildings", Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus-Senftenberg




Critical Rural Theory


Book Description

Critical Rural Theory provides an exploratory foundation for anyone interested in examining the hegemonic power of urbanization and its impacts on rural people and places. This book is without parallel in the rural sociological literature for its commitment to uncovering the power of culture in addition to structure and space in maintaining urban power.




Rural Identities


Book Description

Rural Identities investigates and engages with the ways in which ideas of the English countryside and rural nature, are enrolled into and fashion the narratives of Englishness. At the heart of the book is an examination of the formations of rural social relations, where the processes and practices through which rural attachments and senses of rural belonging, are established and maintained. Drawing on a substantial research project Rural Identities presents important new empirical material in its analysis of why the concepts of community and ethnicity are relevant to understanding the contested status of the English countryside. In doing so, it outlines the exclusionary limitations and inclusionary possibilities of the relational discourses of rurality and nation. The rich empirical material and the conceptual apparatus employed in this volume render it appealing to policy makers as well as to scholars of sociology, geography, qualitative research methods and race and ethnicity studies.




The Politics of Resentment


Book Description

“An important contribution to the literature on contemporary American politics. Both methodologically and substantively, it breaks new ground.” —Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare When Scott Walker was elected Governor of Wisconsin, the state became the focus of debate about the appropriate role of government. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall, he was subsequently reelected. But why were the very people who would benefit from strong government services so vehemently against the idea of big government? With The Politics of Resentment, Katherine J. Cramer uncovers an oft-overlooked piece of the puzzle: rural political consciousness and the resentment of the “liberal elite.” Rural voters are distrustful that politicians will respect the distinct values of their communities and allocate a fair share of resources. What can look like disagreements about basic political principles are therefore actually rooted in something even more fundamental: who we are as people and how closely a candidate’s social identity matches our own. Taking a deep dive into Wisconsin’s political climate, Cramer illuminates the contours of rural consciousness, showing how place-based identities profoundly influence how people understand politics. The Politics of Resentment shows that rural resentment—no less than partisanship, race, or class—plays a major role in dividing America against itself.




The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds


Book Description

Drawing on central issues in social sciences, modernity, nationalism, conflict and rural development, this book offers a comprehensive reading of settlement and resettlement in Turkey, not only the village evacuations in Turkish Kurdistan in the 1980s and 1990s, but also previous settlement and resettlement policies.




Virtual Teams Across National Borders


Book Description

Virtual teams can be traced back to the 1990s with the debauched development of communication technologies as well as the fast extension of the internet. Virtual teams possess unique features allowing them to combine cultural multiplicity, specific tasks, physical remoteness of team members, continuous distant communication, critical interdependence of tasks, leadership, cohesion, empowerment, confidence, virtuality, special trust creation and trust building. For a successful functioning of present-day organisations, they need to employ geographically dispersed labour force. Creating virtual teams functioning across national borders, organisations secure the most competent talent available world-wide. Employing the best available know-how, virtual teams apply the knowledge of experts from various cultures having diverse capabilities as well as varied perceptions on dealing with multiple organisational challenges from strategic perspectives. Compositions of virtual teams operating across national borders alter depending on types of industry, organisation, and organisational unit. International virtual teams functioning across national borders perform from practically everywhere all over the world if there is a secure and constant internet connection. This book is dedicated to offering a comprehensive outlook and analysis of the theoretical and practical aspects related to the creation of virtual teams across national borders as well as the specifics of their implementation. The research, published as chapters in the book, allow the detection of the key aspects and trends concerning the creation and performance of virtual teams across national borders. The book presents topics, not being investigated in-depth so far or not researched at all. The purpose of the book is to fill in certain gaps in the existing research and subsequent publications, referring to a broad variety of issues concerning theoretical and empirical fundamentals of the creation of virtual teams and their functioning across national borders, the role of virtual intelligence in relation to distance interpretation in international virtual teams, geography of virtual teams in relation to digital nomads, communication in virtual teams, creation of communal identity via implementation of virtual teams, tax implications for virtual work among numerous other issues.




Space, Place and Gendered Identities


Book Description

In the last two decades, historians have increasingly sought to understand how environments, ‘built’ and otherwise, architectural surroundings, landscapes, and conceptual ‘places’ and ‘spaces’ have affected the nature and scope of political power, cultural production and social experience . The essays in this collection expand upon this already rich field of inquiry by combining an analytical approach sensitive to questions of gender with an exploration of ideas of political space. The volume demonstrates how the gendered and political meanings of space—be that space domestic or public, rural or urban, real or imagined, or a combination of all these and more—are fashioned through the movement of historical actors through space and time. Whether in delineating the gendered and politicized space of the pulpit; the sickroom; the Irish farmyard; the London suffrage atelier; the domestic space created by the wireless; the lesbian ‘scene’ of rural Canada; the eighteenth-century ladies' ‘closet’; or the public space within the ‘public history’ of historic houses, the volume demonstrates how the meanings of these spaces are not fixed, but are challenged and reformulated. This book was originally published as a special issue of women’s History Review.