Transforming the Rural: Global Processes and Local Futures (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, 24). This item is unavailable.Transforming the Rural: Global Processes and Local Futures (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, 24)

In recent decades, globalization has transformed rural societies and economies across the world. Much has been written by social scientists about the actors and structures underpinning these transformations and the effects on particular social groups, organizations and industries. Yet, to date much less attention has been given to the specific global processes that are fundamental to contemporary rural change. Rural Change and Global Processes provides a systematic analysis of the key global processes transforming rural spaces in the early 21st century – financialization; standardization; consumption, and commodification. Through detailed case studies, the book examines why these processes are important, how they work in practice, and the challenges they raise as well as opportunities created. The book will be of particular relevance to researchers, graduate students, and policy-makers interested in the implications of global processes for rural people and livelihoods.

Selected from presentations to an August 2012 rural sociology conference in Lisbon, 15 papers look at financialization, standardization, and commodification and consumption. Among their topics are impacts of financialization on agricultural and rural investment: lessons from the Portuguese case, creating actionable knowledge for sustainability: a case of standards in the making, a blot on the landscape: consensus and controversies on wind farms in rural Portugal, consuming rural connections: tracking leeks back to their roots, return to the land: decommodification of local foods in South Italy, and nutrition and the Mediterranean diet: a historical and sociological analysis of the concept "healthy diet" in Spanish society. --Annotation ©2017 Ringgold Inc. Portland, OR (protoview.com)