Sustaining Rural Systems

This book examines the interplay between rural places and the competing narratives of globalization and nationalism. Through case studies from Croatia, Belgium, Australia, the USA, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Italy and Spain, this volume highlights the contemporary status of rural change through the lens of sustainability and set within current competing narratives of globalization and economic nationalism.

The multiplicity of roles that rural communities play in economic and social systems are often overlooked in conversations about globalization and economic nationalism. Yet rural communities, economies and landscapes are closely tied to global industries, migrant flows and markets, while simultaneously subject to nationalist economic policies and strategies. The chapters in this book seek to elucidate the nuanced ties between people and industries that are at once intensely local and simultaneously tied to regional and global processes. The volume challenges us to critically examine oversimplified messaging of highly complex systems and provides insights into processes of change at local scales across major global regions.

Sustaining Rural Systems will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and scholars in the areas of rural sociology, human geography and development studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Geographical Review.

Holly R. Barcus is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography and Director of Asians Studies at Macalester College. Her research interests reside at the intersection of migration, identity, ethnicity and rural peripheries. She is currently Vice President and Treasurer of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Executive Committee.

William G. Moseley is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, and Director of the Food, Agriculture & Society Program at Macalester College. His research interests include tropical agriculture, food security, and development policy. He currently serves on the High Level Panel of Experts of the UN Committee on World Food Security.