Rural Margins Research Articles

Organised abandonment in Lebanon's Litani River Basin

This paper is a historical political ecology of the organised abandonment of Lebanon's rural margins. It argues that the present ecological catastrophe in the Litani River basin derives from the historical constitution of Lebanon's environmental regulatory apparatus as mediators of flows of capital that generate ecological fragility, or “capitalogenic flows.” In 2021, a massive fish kill brought the Litani River basin's spectacular ecological degradation to global attention. In response, the Litani River Authority (LRA), the Lebanese agency that manages the basin, launched a campaign against “environmental crimes” that concentrated on displacing thousands of Syrian refugees and demolishing their homes. This reflects a rebranding of the LRA, which was founded in 1955 to coordinate a World Bank loan for hydroelectric infrastructure on the Litani. Rather than commodify the water itself for irrigation or drinking—which might entail pollution controls—the Bank monopolised the basin landscape as an energy resource. Prevented from accessing the river, Litani communities have repeatedly reasserted popular sovereignty. The paper situates that history in the context of the institutional formation of Lebanon's environmental regulatory apparatus. Unlike postcolonial countries subjected to neoliberal dispossession after 1980, decades of contested institution-building from Lebanon's origins arrayed the state and its regulatory capacities around capitalogenic flows and the organised abandonment of the country's rural surplus population.

Help Wanted, Experience Preferred, Stamina a Must: A Narrative Review of the Contextual Factors Influencing Nursing Recruitment and Retention in Rural and Remote Western Canada from the Early Twentieth Century to 2023.

Rural and remote communities of Western Canada have struggled to recruit and retain nursing professionals since the turn of the twentieth century. Existing literature has identified the unique challenges of rural nursing due to the shifting context of rural and remote nursing practice. The objective of this narrative review is to explore the history of rural and remote nursing to better understand the contextual influences shaping rural nursing shortages in Western Canada. This narrative review compared 27 sources of scholarly and historical evidence on the nature of rural nursing practices and recruitment and retention methods following the First World War until 2023. The findings suggest that the complex nature of rural nursing practice is a consistent challenge that has intersected with the long-standing power inequities that are inherent in rural marginalization, political influences, the nursing profession, social structures, and organizational design, to perpetuate rural nursing shortages throughout the past century. Integration and collaboration are needed to reduce systemic marginalization and develop effective and sustainable solutions to reduce nursing shortages in rural and remote areas of Western Canada.

Cocaine: From Coca Fields to the Streets ed. by Enrique Desmond Arias, and Thomas Grisaffi

Reviewed by: Cocaine: From Coca Fields to the Streets ed. by Enrique Desmond Arias, and Thomas Grisaffi Jane Rausch, Emerita Arias, Enrique Desmond, and Thomas Grisaffi, eds. Cocaine: From Coca Fields to the Streets. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. Bookended by editor Enrique Desmond Arias's introduction and conclusion, this volume is a collection of eleven essays written by scholars who participated in a series of panels at a Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress in 2016 to discuss the effects of drug trafficking in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil. Setting their observations within the framework of moral economy, these researchers acknowledge the effect of global drug markets on the nations they examined, and they show how [End Page 225] drug trafficking has developed via a complex process of self-regulation in the shadow of a state power that formally seeks to destroy it. They review the interconnection between sites along cocaine's global supply chain; the implications of those interconnections for social, political, and economic experiences in places affected by the trade; and, conversely, how those interconnections affect the cocaine trade (3). Taken collectively, these essays demonstrate that entire ways of life are built around cocaine commodification and show how state authority is coupled with the self-regulating practices of drug producers, traffickers, and dealers. Their authors also suggest more progressive policies that acknowledge the important role drugs play in the lives of individuals at the urban and rural margins. Since the essays are all high quality, a brief comparison of just two of them will provide an idea of their collective value. In her article, "Drug Crops, Twisted Motorcycles, and Cultural Loss in Indigenous Colombia," Autumn Zellers-Leon notes that Colombian Law 30 of 1986 allows indigenous people to grow up to thirty coca plants for local traditional use and exchange, yet these farmers are also active participants in the illegal drug trade that began in the 1970s. Although the drugs they produce make up a crucial part of the drug commodity chain, they receive only 2 percent of the profits. Nevertheless, Zellers-Leon notes that rather than disrupt the traditional economy, the drug trade has promoted development of a cash-based economy in rural areas that has helped indigenous families meet their basic needs. One of the most basic changes has been the abandonment of horse-drawn vehicles for motorcycles. Drug gangs introduced these probably stolen motorcycles and then dumped them in remote places such as rural Cauca. Their presence promoted road building and the expansion of municipal town centers, but they also contributed to the breakdown of traditional community values. In this one example, indigenous families' increasing dependence on global commodities challenges their identity models rooted in past lifeways. In fact, many of Cauca's indigenous communities could not sustain themselves today without the availability of motorcycles for transport. Thus, in this way, the drug trade has helped to mitigate the effects of class inequalities in rural indigenous regions. Zeilers-Leon concludes that to resolve the situation, the state must prioritize the needs of indigenous farmers in both long-term agricultural development projects and policies that favor indigenous agricultural goods (114). [End Page 226] By contrast, Taniele Rui's essay compares drug consumption between 1990 and 2017 in two of Brazil's largest cities—São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Her case studies reveal that the illegal drug trade produces and regulates user scenes in both cities, but in different ways. In São Paulo, a single criminal faction manages conflicts that the trade generates, and illicit markets are not necessarily violent. Drug users concentrate in the downtown area, and the government's repressive efforts to repress drug use have not only increased the number of crack users in prison but also strengthen the criminal organization by providing new recruits. In Rio de Janeiro, state policies have displaced drug users to different parts of the city. This strategy has encouraged activities by illegally armed actors in the favelas and hides the problem from the view of tourists who do not see the consumption sites. Rui concludes that since the crack trade is not the same everywhere in Brazil and does...

Marginalisation through the eyes of the othered: Young adults choosing to live in rural Northern Sweden

Recent years have seen increasing debate and research into identity and belonging in rural areas. The northernmost region of Sweden, Norrland, has been identified as the rural internal other to the modern, progressive, youthful and urban Swedish state (Eriksson, 2008). Young adults are underrepresented in and often expected to leave small municipalities, but an increasing body of international research focuses on rural stayers. This study aims to investigate how young adults choosing to live in rural Northern Sweden negotiate their identity in relation to representations and Othering of Norrland and the rural. The research is based on eleven semi-structured interviews with people between 19 and 25 years old living in the counties of Norrbotten, Västerbotten and Västernorrland. The findings show that young adults are aware of prejudice and negative representations surrounding their localities. These representations are approached in different ways, either seen as true, upsetting or irrelevant. The concept of Norrland was often understood as oppressive, prejudiced or one-dimensional when used by people who do not live there. Participants perceive that they and their places do not matter to authorities at any political level and worry about losing access to public services. As an effect of stigmatisation and generalisation of rural Norrland, injustice was seen as natural and difficult to complain about. These findings are important as they give voice to people who are often made invisible and because it shows alternative reactions to rural marginalisation than radicalisation.

Low-cost Chinese goods in Tanzania: the rise of transnational trade routes’ peripheral branches

This article illustrates how rural margins and urban-rural relations in southwest Tanzania join up with transnational trade routes for Chinese goods. It examines the trade of low-cost imported goods from China (plastic sandals, cheap jewellery, various fashion accessories, cheap clothing, etc.) that are widely spread in Tanzania, up into the peripheral countryside. By examining the concept of trade routes, the article contributes to the literature on urban-rural relations in African Studies and ‘inconspicuous globalisation’ by proposing a contrary perspective, where rural areas viewed as areas of consumption of imported products. It then rescales the globalization analysis by situating urban-rural relations at the heart of local and global interconnections. The article demonstrates that geographically peripheral places and actors have a capacity to influence the direction of the global trade route as they combine complementarities between the urban-rural continuum and topological continuity of networks from local to global. The global trade geography is profoundly influenced by what goes on in its inconspicuous tentacles in upcountry regions, such as the Uporoto Mountains, where the global trade route relies on the dynamism of local agriculture, which is increasingly merging with other livelihoods. This is exemplified by the complementarities between trade and agriculture in terms of livelihood, circulation of capital, urban-rural mobility, and links to global scales, which highlight the de-agrarianization process and the development of a mass consumption society.

Centre-periphery conflicts and alienation in a resource-based economy

ABSTRACT Since the early 2010s, increased centre-periphery tensions have arisen across the Western Hemisphere and have had a significant influence on domestic policies. Analysts have explained this as an effect of economic inequalities and rural marginalisation. In this article it is argued that rural upheavals and centre-periphery conflicts can be caused by processes of alienation. The authors’ analysis is based on existing literature and statistics, as well as their own previously published research. From the case of Norway, they suggest that rural and peripheral upheavals can be explained as alienation caused by a combination of two different phenomena: ongoing transitions within the rural political economy of nature-based industries and sectors, and changes in the role of the modern welfare state, towards a state that in several key policy areas withdraws from the peripheries. Combined, these economic and political developments have produced a state of rural alienation and sharpening centre-periphery tensions, even in the absence of marginalisation and increases in economic inequality. In conclusion, the main argument of the article is that combined, such economic and political developments have produced a state of rural alienation and sharpening centre-periphery tensions, even in the absence of marginalisation and increases in economic inequality.

Education and sustainable forest management in the mid-hills of Nepal

There are only limited policy levers that governments can use to facilitate sustainable development within remote rural communities. Often marginalised communities are almost uniquely dependent on the exploitation of local natural resources to generate livelihoods. We examine how formal education, both of household heads and more broadly across households, influences perceived opportunities for the conception, management and utilisation of community forests in the mid-hills of Nepal. As societies transition, more sophisticated economies will require education to facilitate effective natural resource management. New challenges are emerging for community forestry as a result. The quantitative socio-ecological data analysis suggests that while the roles of community forests are evolving, education is key to household participation in commercial opportunities. Formal education in the household is shown to be associated with a greater recognition of the importance of the commercialisation of forest timber and food products, and the desire to participate in further commercial forest activities. Education in the household also provides respondents with a more sophisticated understanding of new opportunities, ecosystem services and risks associated with the forest, and the abilities to actively manage the forest and influence planning. Formal education empowers people to become local experts in forest management and participate in new opportunities that forests provide. Any failure to examine household education levels may be neglecting key sociological data on the importance of education for sustainable development outcomes. In the rural margins of the mid-hills of Nepal there are opportunities for further aligning formal education with forestry policy.

Situating spatial justice in counter-urban lifestyle mobilities: relational rural theory in a time of crisis

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed the rural idyll, as urban-dwellers seek greener, safer spaces. If the counter-urban trend appears for novel reasons, it does so along lifestyle mobilities’ well-worn paths. These paths often depend upon spatial inequalities. Yet, despite awareness that inequalities undergird mobilities, spatial inequalities have remained under-theorized in the lifestyle mobilities literature. This article remedies the gap through the concept of spatial justice. Initially asserting the ‘right to’ urban space, spatial justice has been recently re-thought at a regional scale, and is an emerging interpretation of rural marginalization and redress. As a normative concept, however, spatial justice risks simplistically measuring the distribution and presuming sedentarism. By applying spatial justice to lifestyle mobilities pre-pandemic and looking ahead to future shifts, we offer a nuanced, relational perspective on the theory and the field. Through qualitative case studies from rural and peripheral regions in Wales and Ireland, we show how inequalities and mobilities are complex and inter-related, with significant implications for regional sustainability, cohesion and identity. As the discourse of being ‘all in this together' has rapidly unravelled, we argue that theorizing spatial inequalities is an urgent task for futures beyond recovery – and that lifestyle mobilities are deeply implicated.

Of Care and Patio Praxis

The patio, referring to the space outside the roofed houses but inside the fence wrapping around a property and often holding a handful of homes, is loosely defined in rural Dominican daily life. In the borderlands of the Dominican Republic, the patio serves as both a space for cultivating care between family and friends and a safe haven from the state. Spaces of resistance, as this photo essay illustrates, are not always ones of combat or conflict. Rather, care and resistance take shape through the quotidian, mundane, and mostly uneventful acts of repair, boredom, or conversation between family, friends, and neighbors. This photo essay is an engagement with the small acts of care that fortify social life at the rural margins of the state.

Creativity as a Key Constituent for Smart Specialization Strategies (S3), What Is in It for Peripheral Regions? Co-creating Sustainable and Resilient Tourism with Cultural and Creative Industries

Sustainable tourism is one of the key sectors in the South Baltic Sea Region (SBSR), which belongs to the role model for sustainability—the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). In this context, resilience, recovery and sustainability become key common threads calling for new approaches mitigating negative impacts, upscaling resilience capacity and boosting recovery in the post-pandemic era. The present work aims at revealing conceptual and practical pathways for policy makers and businesses in revitalizing sustainable tourism in the region by emphasizing cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as strong contributors to sustainable development and economic ecosystems, such as tourism. Tourism is also one of the key thematic areas of the smart specialization strategies (S3) in the SBSR. However, there is almost no link between CCIs’ potential for sustainable and resilient tourism and their contribution to the co-design and co-creation of S3. CCIs are rather absent agents in quadruple helix networks supporting S3 policy implementation. The literature on this topic is still premature, and represents a clear gap in knowledge. By virtue of these circumstances, the present research investigates how CCIs contribute and reveal new linkages between local assets, potential markets and societal challenges by engaging them as proven sustainable innovation and transition brokers in transnational quadruple helix partnerships following S3 policies in accordance with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), thus supporting sustainable and resilient tourism. Moreover, this paper aims at advocating for development of rural and peripheral regions, thus reducing the so-called “rural marginalization”. In addition, this paper also supports ongoing recent discussions on related vs. unrelated diversification policy within the S3 realm.

Migration, crop diversification, and adverse incorporation: understanding the repertoire of contention in rural Tajikistan

ABSTRACT Post-socialist Tajikistan has experienced ongoing agrarian reforms since the 1990s. In this paper, I firstly characterise recent agrarian political economic dynamics in the country and address domestic elites’ tenacious control over the rural economy, which signifies “control grabbing” (and with which the countryside retains feudal features). I then turn to Chinese farmland investments in Tajikistan’s southwestern region. Secondly, I analyse forms of contention and argue that these are shaped by: (a) legacies of the civil war and deepening authoritarianism; (b) migration; and (c) agricultural labour relations and rural marginalisation. Finally, I contend that Chinese investors benefit from, rather than drive, dispossession.

Social innovation in rural governance: A comparative case study across the marginalised rural EU

The phenomenon of rural marginalisation has intensified across the European Union after the 2008 global economic crisis, since the traditional state forms have been proved unable to promote an all-inclusive governing. Beyond-the-state governance systems are socially innovative, horizontal, networked, and collaborative institutional arrangements that are committed to breaking through this rural marginalisation. Marginalised rural areas provide a favourable context for socially innovative governance, since they contain small cohesive communities, while at the same time poor governing penetrates them. Nevertheless, social innovation in rural governance remains largely unexplored. The novel contribution of this article consists in underlying this research gap and exploring the question of how socially innovative governance is fostered or impeded within marginalised rural regions.Comparative research was conducted in between the marginalised rural regions of Mühlviertel in Austria, Baixo Alentejo in Portugal, and Phthiotis in Greece. The comparative results revealed some of the parameters that foster socially innovative governance; a decentralized government structure, advanced interregional networking, a discourse dissemination among the stakeholders and the civil society, as well as an organizational stability of the involved institutions for social innovation to become embedded. This article points to socially innovative governance that has a more codified and systematized hypostasis by recommendation of unique governance qualities.

Food festivals in Italy: a festive strategy against rural marginalization

ABSTRACT Food festivals are rising in popularity across the world. In particular, in Italy, they are among the main touristic summer events. In the past decade, the country has witnessed the proliferation of these feasts, in particular in rural areas. This article investigates this success exploring the socio-cultural needs that move rural communities to organize the events. Through exploration of the ethnographic case of San Rocco and its Ravioli Festival, the article points out the interconnection between the organization of the event and the effects of the ongoing marginalization experienced by the community. Highlighting the material divide that separates urban centers and rural areas, the article suggests that the organization of a food festival is a grassroots festive strategy adopted by rural communities in order to mitigate and counter the impact of rural marginalization and its consequences.

Neo‐Endogenous Rural Development: A Path Toward Reviving Rural Europe*

AbstractThe 2008 fiscal crisis, inflamed by austerity measures, has prompted rural marginalization and societal segmentation across the European Union (EU). The current article investigates how a European rural revival can be materialized, without losing sight of the national and local conditions. Within the contemporary EU governance framework—in which a European institution cannot be categorized as endogenous or exogenous to a sub‐state nation—the concept of neo‐endogenous rural development seems more topical than ever. The term describes a new perspective of governance that reconciles the endogenous to the exogenous dynamics. Along these lines, the present article dwells on the question of how can the neo‐endogenous rural development agenda be disseminated across the EU. By identifying the lack of international comparative research in the field of rural development, the current study explores different European, rural development trajectories and draws meaningful comparisons. A comparative qualitative research was conducted in three rural regions, stratified in terms of economic and governance decentralization: Mühlviertel in Austria, Baixo Alentejo in Portugal, and Phthiotis in Greece. The comparative research indicated the importance of interregional networking and socially innovative governance for the embeddedness of a neo‐endogenous rural development agenda.

A quantitative analysis on Romanian rural areas, agritourism and the impacts of European Union’s financial subsidies

The European Union's specific financial subsidies have supported pluriactivity development in farms through agritourism. By allocating specific funds aimed at encouraging farm diversification and increasing farmers' income, the European Union seeks to reduce rural marginalisation due to emigration, which is a central target of the Common Agricultural Policy. Thus, this research aims to quantitatively assess the impact of these financial subsidies on the growth of Romanian agritourism, determine the socio-economic variables that have affected this, and assess whether agritourism has lessened permanent emigration from Romania. The results reveal that the GDP levels and the number of employed people have influenced the direct role of financial subsidies allocated by the Common Agricultural Policy and aimed towards agritourism growth. The analysis also showed a few significant factors impacting rural emigration. Agritourism is indirectly connected to population density, suggesting that, over the time of investigation, less populated areas showed significant growth in agritourism. This research realises its novelty by investigating if agritourism serves as a socio-economic protection in rural Romania and by assessing which specific aids—decoupled payments or rural development supports—allocated by the Common Agricultural Policy― successfully restrict permanent emigration and marginalisation in rural areas.

Understanding environmental conflicts through cultural ecosystem services - the case of agroecosystems in Bulgaria

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) that people co-create with agroecosystems, such as place attachment and traditional knowledge, are declining in rural areas undergoing abrupt economic, environmental, and social changes. As a result, environmental conflicts arise. This article uses an ecosystem services framework to trace causes, outcomes, and responses to open and latent environmental conflicts in rural Bulgaria. Based on a correlation network analysis, the obtained results reveal the perceived importance of rural place identity and connectedness to nature as central and the most influenced CES in latent environmental conflicts responses (without visible mobilizations). As such, CES can be overlooked as important to local people in rural areas when environmental decisions are made. The study connects these findings with the notion of latency conflicts and argues how environmental conflicts over the agricultural land enclosure and rural marginalization are intertwined with non-material contributions – CES, unveiled through the network analysis.

The anti-fracking movement and the politics of rural marginalization in Lithuania: intersectionality in environmental justice

ABSTRACT While the environmental justice perspective focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental risks and benefits across different groups based on race, class, or gender, intersectionality approaches avoid the use of a priori categories to examine marginalization. We argue that intersectionality can broaden the scope of environmental justice studies by examining interactive, historically grounded processes through which categories of difference are produced. To support this argument, we present an illustrative case of the movement in Lithuania that challenged Chevron’s plans to prospect shale resources for potential fracking. We conduct a narrative analysis of public discourses surrounding the formation of the movement and track the creation of a particular category of difference: the rural community, represented in opposition to the urban. We show how the public debate in Lithuania culminated in questioning the legitimacy of the anti-fracking movement and devaluing the rural population more broadly. We also show how both media accounts and anti-fracking movement leaders ignored social inequalities in rural villages. We conclude with a discussion of how the intersectionality approach provides an analytical lens to consider geopolitical tensions as part of the matrix of power relations that can be understood as expressions of ontological insecurity in global borderlands.

Energy (in)justice in off-grid rural electrification policy: South Africa in focus

Generally speaking, increasing rural marginalisation in sub-Saharan Africa has sat alongside a rise in energy poor homes in rural off-grid communities. Even measures meant to improve electricity access have exacerbated the energy access gap between grid connected and off-grid homes. For example, the South African Non-Grid Electrification Policy Guidelines for electrifying off-grid, rural poor homes promote the adoption of Solar Home Systems (SHS), which are expected to produce 7.5 kWh/month on average. However, for poor homes within grid coverage, the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) programme allocates 50 kWh/month. This paper investigates the resulting disparity in terms of electricity cost (ZAR/kWh), including associated costs for heating, cooking and other needs. It does so through the energy justice framework, highlighting the mismatch in policy formulation (procedural injustice), resource distribution (distributive injustice) and spatial distribution (injustice in the recognition of population groups’ special needs). Through a combination of mathematics and social science perspectives, it then moves beyond a critique of the current SHS system to proposes a new one: a hybrid generation approach with a flexible pricing scheme and centralized system of operation that is both ethically compliant and capable of improving electricity access to off-grid communities with standards comparable to grid access.

Fields of Progress: The Mechanization of Agriculture in Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978) functions less as a traditional narrative in this article than as a postmodern filmic essay on the meanings and legacies of early-twentieth-century modernization in the agricultural districts of the southwestern Great Plains. Representing the border spaces of the Texas Panhandle in 1916, the film imagines a migrant space that hosts an uneven melange of machines, bodies, and terrains—one that highlights the social and ecological consequences of industrial modernity's appearance on the rural landscape. As it imagines flows of people and products between rural margins and metropolitan centers, Days of Heaven both anticipates and elaborates more recent historiographies, such as William Cronon's, that trouble common conceptions of urban core and country periphery. The film also illuminates questions about the overlap of the modern and the postmodern through a meticulously crafted pastiche of iconic twentieth-century American images. With an eye on these qualities, this article uses Malick's depictions of mechanization and his self-consciously referential aesthetic sensibilities to examine the objects that comprise late-70s postmodernism in the American grain, a version that is not so much a departure from the techniques, ethics, and spaces of modernism as it is their extension, amplification, and reproduction.

The Acoustics of Justice: Music and Myth in Afro-Brazilian Congado

For the Afro-Brazilian musicians of popular Catholicism, or Congadeiros, who live precariously on the urban and rural margins of Brazil, ritual undergirds their struggles for subsistence, spiritual fulfillment, and racial equality. When Congadeiros create ritual, they enter into a tradition begun in the seventeenth century in Brazil by their enslaved African and Afro-descendant ancestors who intoned songs of redemption. In keeping with their ancestors’ evocations of dignity during slavery, worshipers in the present day embed multiple kinds of vested interests within ritual festivity to achieve racial equality. This article explores Congado, the ceremonies of these disenfranchised musicians, to gain a broader understanding of how they use the expressive modalities of music and myth as warrants of truth in their struggles against racism. Insofar as myth and music speak of racial pride and socio-religious transformation, they are reflective of practitioners’ efforts to build a collective epistemology through an acoustics of justice. Indeed, the pursuit to redress social disparities is no more clearly betokened than in the music and myth of Congado vernacular traditions. Thus, this article contributes an ethnomusicological perspective to an interdisciplinary conversation about the conditions of possibility that Congado music and myth afford for the attainment of socio-political transformation. In brief, I investigate the entwinement of music and myth to illuminate the racial economies of Afro-Brazilian devotional expression and call for an understanding of Congado as a crucial site for the poetics and politics of survival.